Good Night
by Hollis V. Saxon
Summary: On a break from their pop star lifestyle, the Vocaloid try to relax when a mysterious person appears and makes the group's life hell. Can Gumi defeat them before it's too late?
1. Broken Arc 1: Fallout With Love

In the other room, I could see the lights of the TV screen flicker across his face, his blank eyes watching the moving picture. I slipped in and sat down next to him unnoticed, and leaned next to him. "Len," I said, calling out to the young man.

He turned, dreamily slow, towards me and met my eyes. "Tei-chan!" he said my name, surprised, as his eyes came back to life. He reached out for my hands and I happily gave him them, and I drew him in for an embrace. Letting go, I kissed him lightly when the lights came on.

I looked at Len and saw that he was scared, and turned around to see who had turned the lights on, and found it was Miku Hatsune. "Yes?" I asked. I looked her over and saw that she was holding a knife.

"I was going to ask where Rin was, but it seems that there is something in my way," she said darkly.

"And what would be that something?" I asked, then realized what the only reason she would be carrying around a knife and asking for Rin. I stood up and took a defensive stance quickly. "That something would be me, right?"

"What is she going to do with Rin?" Len asked, sitting up.

"Not to give her flowers," I told him.

"Perceptible brat," Miku said, gripping the knife and lunging at me. Unarmed, I dodged and tried to trip her, to no avail.

"Len! Run!" I yelled to him, and he followed. I turned back to my fight with Miku and noted she did not waste her time while I was dealing with Len. She stabbed me in the abdomen, which caused me to buckle and kneeled over. The wound would cripple me for some time, at least until I could get to a medical kit.

I looked back up at her and saw her walking after Len, leaving me for later. I stood to go after her, but I staggered and had to lean against the wall. That was okay, for now.

Before I knew it, I had lost both Miku and Len in this maze-like mansion the Vocaloid crew bought for vacation. The bleeding had stopped, and I could walk without leaning against the wall, but the wound still hindered my ability to walk.

One thing that bothered me was that although I could walk around the mansion for hours on end, and simply could not find any of its residents. After an hour though, I saw someone else wandering about, seemingly aimlessly. It was Meiko's husband Kaito, messing with his phone.

"Kaito!" I called. He looked up and saw my gory self and ran toward me, only to slow down midway and resumed walking normally. Must've thought I was Miku and was disappointed that it was me, I thought. "Can you help me?"

"You look just fine, being the villain. I should end you as I'm the hero Urotander," he said proudly.

"Granted that I wasn't nice in the past, things have changed."

"Not by much it would seem."

"My insufficient injury aside, Rin is in danger," I told him plainly.

"I don't think someone with that large of a wound could possibly put her in much danger," he joked. He didn't believe me.

"I'm not the one who's putting her in danger."

"Are you saying that Miku's the one out for her life?" He doesn't get it.

"Len would agree with me on that."

"Of course, that or be cursed with nightmares."

"Rin is going to die and you're going to let Miku slide by just like that. Either get it through your damn skull that I'm not joking or watch as we are going to be leaving this place one by one on ambulance rollers," I said to him, and staggered on, not letting my search for the Kagamine twins be delayed any further.

"She's not the villain here, you are!" Kaito called after me playfully. I would shoot him down out of annoyance, but then I'd be caving in to him, so I ignored him.

Eventually I began to hear the twins, scared but not frantic, so I guessed that Miku hadn't shown up yet. Sometime between the idiot Kaito and now, I had found a first aid kit and patched myself up. The wound felt deep, but it fortunately did not reach my back.

Turning the corner, I saw the two relaxed, leaning on the balcony rail looking out into the sunset. Miku was nowhere to be seen, but she would be here soon enough. I walked toward them, looking down each hall I passed for the knife nut, and when I was a short distance from the twins, I called out to them.

Rin, surprised, turned around quickly, but relaxed when she saw me. "Oh, hello Tei-san. Did you come up here to see the sun set?" Rin asked.

"Yeah. It's good to watch a rare occurrence such as a clear October sunset," I said. She turned back and smiled, and I limped the rest of the way to the rail.

"Can I join you?" she said, and the three of us spun around. Miku approached us, and I slid away from Rin to allow Miku take the place between us. That way if she tried to attack Rin, I would be able to save her, and if she attacked me, at least Rin would be able to escape.

"Sure," I said. she wasn't holding the knife, so either she didn't have it or hid it on her person. "You also come to see this beautiful day come to a close?"

"Yes. Beautiful days end with peaceful nights, right?" she said.

"That is true."

The sun turned the blue sky a dazzling orangish red and yellow, before fading to a deep violet and finally royal blue as the stars emerged. I was so absorbed by the beautiful scenery that I didn't notice Rin head to bed or feel Miku grab me by my ankles and haul me over the edge.

The stars suddenly moved upwards, and I realized what Miku was doing, reflexively reached over and grabbed her arm. "Miku!" I yelped. "What are you doing?"

"Getting rid of competition. Especially when I know that you take extreme measures to get him to like you, so it's really just like retribution," she told me, reminding me of my violent attempts to get Len to like me. "Heck, you even tried to kill Luka just because you thought Director was even interested in human-like artifices like us. You were given a second chance as Tei Sukone, or 'Healthy Sound' as the English translation states, but you again went yandere, this time for Len. You'd do better with a name that meant 'Lethal Bug' or something similar."

"Who gives a damn about the meaning of names anymore? If it isn't something they automatically considered a title, they'll consider it the same as a given or family name!" I said in attempt to sway her from the idea of dropping me. I was scared for my life, and I wished she'd think of some other way to win Len over. I wished I thought of a different way.

Tears began forming in my eyes, and I let them flow to show that I was at her mercy. "Tell me something, did you tell anyone that I was trying to kill Rin?" she asked.

I looked down. "Kaito," I answered. "No one else."

"Did he think it was a joke?"

"He sounded like he did, but I don't think he really did."

"Say it. Say it loud and clear."

"I'm sorry."

"LOUD AND CLEAR!"

"I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY!" I repeated, tears racing down my cheeks. Miku reached back and pulled out the knife. At this point, Len had returned from god knows where and saw Miku with the knife and ran to the balcony.

"Grab my hand!" he told me, reaching out for me. I started towards him, but then realized that if I did reach for him that she would haul him over the side and shake him until we let go of each other. There was no escape of falling to my death.

Miku brought the knife within cutting reach of the knife. "Good night Len and Rin, Director, and Kaito. And Miku," I said, looking up at her. "I'll see you in Hell." I looked at Len and gave him one last smile, then let go.

"Tei!" Len shouted, then turned and ran back into the building. Miku smiled, looking down on me, then began laughing. I laid back and relaxed my muscles.

Oh, sweet October, why must your wind be so cold?

Len

"Tei!" I called, seeing her lose her grip on Miku and fall. I ran to the stairs and flew down them, past a startled Rin. When I hit the ground floor, I dashed toward the door and soon I was outside. Wasting no time, I ran down the mountain path and found a small trail that I used.

I was too late, though, and was stuck there panting looking over Tei's splattered body. The lights in her eyes flickered, and I kneeled down to see better when the eyes slowly looked over at me. "Len," she said faintly.

"Tei," I said back, picking up her almost detached head. "I wish I could do something, but this is the end, right?" I started to choke up, and it began to get hard to hold her.

"Let me go, Len. It's over, she's won. She's won because I'm the villain, and the villain always loses," she said, her voice cracking before the lights faded from her eyes. Her head slipped out of my hands and out of my reach, and rolled down the trail until it was stopped by a low bump on the side of the trail.

I stood silently and turned to walk back, my back slightly hunched. I took several steps before looking back. I could barely keep myself from bending over and crying. Tears blurred my vision and pain lurched from my stomach. I could barely stand, and I dropped to my knees.

"Why, Miku? Tei? Why were you fighting? Was it me? Did you both love me? Then why did you two try to kill each other instead of share? Can't anyone share another?" I thought aloud, and coughed as I tried to take a breath. Why don't I just take myself out of the equation then? I asked myself. That's a good idea!

Suddenly something plunged into my back, tearing through my right lung, and by the weight of the object, which I could only think of the knife that Miku had, knocked the breath out of me and pinned my weak body to the ground. I instantly wanted to take back the statement I just had, but I don't think it works like that.

I lost feeling as my body died, and it would only be a matter of moments before destiny's cruel cogwheels will be fully set in motion. I hoped that no matter who survived in the end, it wasn't Miku.


	2. Broken Arc 2: Three Lost Machines

"Haku," Neru-chan said softly, parting our lips. Standing back, she forgot to stop walking back and fell off the stage and into the crowd.

"Neru!" I called to her, as the crowd generously lifted her back onto the stage. I helped her up and we clumsily fell backwards onto each other. The cheering in the crowd thundered as they got a bonus view from the floor. A few moments later, I leaned up to give Neru-chan a kiss, which she bent down lower to embrace with one of her own.

Breaking off the kiss, we stood up, dusting each other off. Suddenly the virtual crowd gasped, and I turned to see Miku-chan enter the room. "Am I not welcome here?" she said, in response to the crowd. Turning toward us, she said, "Gumi would like to see you both. She wants you to wait a moment before heading over."

"That's okay with us," I said, blinking blankly. Gumi-san wants to see us? Why?

Miku-chan sighed and walked over to the hologram projector controls and changed the scene from the concert to the bottom of the mountain which our temporary residence was. She began to pace in place and the hologram moved with her steps to simulate actually being there. Me and Neru-chan stood and watched quietly as she paced a lap around the mountain, occasionally looking around.

Finding nothing but satisfied nonetheless, Miku-chan switched back to the stage visualization with an expressionless face. Sighing, she turned to us and was about to say something when a gunshot resounded, causing all three of us to jump backwards against the wall. I turned toward the origin and saw the tip of the long blue scarf the shooter wore disappearing down the corridor. I was about to run after him when I saw Neru-chan's face tear up.

I looked over and saw Miku-chan fall to the ground dead, with a streak of electricity faintly emitting from her head. "Miku-chan…" I muttered, shocked. "Neru, take care of her," I told her quickly, then ran after the shooter. But when I turned back to the door I saw the man leave through, he was at the door tossing an EMP grenade toward us.

I know the grenade wouldn't affect normal human beings and singers and other celebrities since they aren't part machine, most of them any way, but everyone in the Vocaloid crew is at least half-machine, with the sole exceptions of Luka and Gakupo, who are about a tenth and twentieth (or seventieth, depending if he's in a serious battle or not) parts machine respectively.

I figured that if I caught and buffered the EMP, I would at least save Neru-chan and Miku-chan from the blast. I looked up at the man to see him turning to depart again. He had blue hair and eyes to match his scarf, and a large white winter coat that reached his knees. I took an eye-snapshot and sent it to the Vocaloid database, in hopes that either Gumi-san or the Director would get it.

I reached up to grab the grenade from midair, when someone else caught it and was about to throw it back, but they hit my shoulder and dropped it behind me. The newcomer turned around, surprised and scared. I identified them as Ruko-san, a newer Vocaloid with black hair with red and blue streaks and eyes. I met her gaze for a moment, equally scared. "Gome no zai," she said, shortly before the grenade went off, incapacitating everyone except the shooter, who had run off, closing the door behind him.

RUNNING/USER/YOWANE-H/SYSTEM/SYSTEM-RESTORE.

As I regained consciousness, I felt like lead. Even lifting my fingers was hard.

RUNNING/USER/YOWANE-H/SYSTEM/FUNCTION-BLOCK-REMOVE.

Yeah, much better. I sat up and looked around, seeing the others lying around like I was. Ruko-san had her mouth open in a scream, which would have came had our automatic system functions not came in.

Automatic System Functions? More like Automatic System Fails. Me and Ruko were the first ones to have them, and they've been a burden to us every goddamn time we didn't want them. It's a good thing when we see the director again he'll remove the programs.

I stood and looked for Neru-chan, but through all the smoke and dim light it wasn't easy. I stumbled in the direction I believe was toward her, and ran into wall, simultaneously hitting the door switch. The cloud of smoke billowed out, and the room brightened up. I saw and walked over to Neru- and Miku-chan, and confirmed that Miku-chan was really dead.

Neru-chan had a severe burn on her arm where her cell phone was burning. I knocked it off onto the floor, then stamped it out. I guess she needed a new cell phone anyway. Other than the burn, she appeared fine.

"Neru," I said, nudging her. "Neru-chan."

No response. I checked for her heartbeat, which was still there thankfully. Leaving her side, I checked to see if Ruko-chan was also alive, and like Ritsu, the klutz was still alive. Sighing, I stood and exited the room.

From the corridor, I saw that both ways were blocked by the security lock. The man could have them set off, but where would he go from there? I took a guess on which direction he must've taken, and headed down the corridor. I tried to remember how I got to the room, but conveniently couldn't.

When we find you, blue-man, we'll beat your face in for sure. I unfastened the lock and ducked out of the way incase he was there. Carefully, I checked he wasn't there, and finding that he really wasn't there and pressed on.

After going one way without turning, I headed back and checked on the two I left in the room, and I was glad to see them getting their bearings. I continued down the other hall, and soon enough, I found the security panel. The code was fortunately on the panel, however, it was in Braille.

I thought Kiyoteru-san was the only one that needed glasses. I didn't know how to convert Braille, and I didn't want Ruko-san to mess with it. Neru-chan didn't say crap most of the time, usually communicating through text, which was kinda hard without a device for it. Moving on, I left it alone and continued on.

I tried to connect to the Vocaloid database, but it seemed those electronic components are still shot, and they will be until the Director gets in contact with us. The security locks weren't much more than a nuisance when lockdown wasn't initiated, compared to when they were. At that time, they essentially double as blast doors.

Finishing the corridor, I started working inward. The process was slow, and by the forty-something-th door, I said screw it and just unfastened the doors one after another. I made it to the middle when I met up with Neru-chan and Ruko-san, who had been helping me, and found there was three more doors left. None of us had found the stairs yet, nor the man.

"Alright, Ruko-san, pick a door and open it," I instructed. She chose the middle door. And behind it was… the broom closet. She expressed her disappointment, then sat back. Neru-chan chose the door on the left, which revealed a broken window with climbing equipment protruding from the bottom, securely fastened.

That left the remaining door. We double-checked to make sure everything on the floor was at least examined for a way out. If we found something other than stairs behind that door, we were going to have a blast with the climbing equipment.

We made sure that if the man was waiting behind the door we had an escape plan. Kind of. I grasped the handles and pulled back, freeing the turn mechanism. I turned and pulled back quickly, and when I had it at about ninety-degrees, I jumped back and did a backwards somersault. Nothing.

The three of us looked around the door cautiously and saw our way out. The stairs seemed to gleam hope and beg us to use them, but Neru-chan blocked the way. "Was ist es, Aki?" Ruko-san asked, in German no less. With a glare from Neru-chan, Ruko-san translated; "What is it?"

Neru-chan, pleased, pointed out a lantern that was hovering in the center of the threshold. It was an old-fashioned dark gray lantern, emitting a faint white light. It did seem out of place, but I guess I didn't see what was wrong with it. "Yeah?" I said, confused.

"What's holding it up?" Ruko-san pointed out. I looked over again. It was hovering there without strings, nor a stand nor pole nor nothing. It was just hanging there.

"I'll go first, to see if I can get a better view. You two stay back," I ordered. I turned and started toward it. It seemed to sway, but didn't make any major movements until I was in about two arms-lengths, which it noticeably shifted, then started toward me. I backed up slowly as it approached. When it was less than arms-length, it spun momentarily, and I heard something being swung when my tie parted from its knot.

Run. I turned and dashed out of the room, turning only once to see it following at a slightly slower pace but still fast. I ran past Neru-chan and Ruko-san who noticed the lantern following me, and ran their own pre-planned direction.

The lantern stopped momentarily, deciding who to follow. After a moment of reprieve, it chased after Neru-chan. I stopped to catch my breath, and Ruko-san moved beside me. "We could try to help, but I'm sure that Akita will follow the path and come back to us alive. I didn't like your tie anyway," she blabbed. I smacked her on the back of her head.

I moved to meet Neru-chan on her path, which led me almost the entire way. When I finally did meet up to her, she was almost crying. I stopped her and made her speak. What came out didn't please me.

"That thing… Miku-chan… Taking over…"

That was all the motivation I needed to sprint to the stairs. I ran with Neru-chan at my heels, soon followed by Ruko-san when we passed her. "What's going on, Yowane-san?" she asked.

"That thing is taking over Miku-chan's corpse!" I called back.

"F*kk!" Ruko-san cursed. "Can't we just lock it in?"

That gave me an idea. "I have a plan, thanks to you. You two, don't follow me!" I turned and ran for the security pad near the room that the creature was. Without a second thought, I randomly pressed four digits it asked for.

"_SECURITY BLOCKS UNLOCKED._" I pressed four more digits, activating the security locks, before punching the keypad. Then I strategically undid the locks manually and flew down the stairs. Neru-chan and Ruko-san were waiting for me at the bottom.

"Lets go," I told them and at a more leisure pace, headed for the front door.

From there on, we stopped worrying about the lantern monster and focused on the man and finding a connection to the Director and Gumi-san. But this mansion on the mountainside proved to be difficult to navigate. We ran into Rin Kagamine-chan, who was upset about all the security locks and losing sight of her brother.

We asked if she knew someone with blue hair and eyes with a matching scarf, without telling her what he had done, and she said it was an older member of the Vocaloid crew named Kaito, who had been away with Meiko, his wife and the first official Vocaloid member, for the week.

Week? Then who did we see earlier? We didn't want to pry any further, so we left it at that. We turned to leave, but Kagamine-chan grabbed my arm. "Have you seen my brother or Miku? Or even Tei?" she asked.

"I don't know where Sukone-san or Kagamine-kun are, but Miku-san is upstairs, taking a rest," I answered as honestly as possible, not wanting to explain a lantern monster or what it had done to Miku-san.

"You really don't want to disturb her right now. She's not in the best of moods," Ruko-san said rudely.

"Oh, okay. I was just wondering. Thank you anyway," Kagamine-chan said before leaving. We proceeded our hunt for the elusive front door, and each had a round of who can say a worse insult about this Kaito guy.

Neru-chan topped us all by saying this: "He is not evil, nor is he mad, crazy, or even a magnificent turd. He is Kaito. Kaito is eviler than pure evil; madder than mad; and even crazier than crazy. That's because he is Kaito."

We laughed at that. It was true, he was Kaito.

We turned another corner and finally found the exit, which we happily left the building through. After all that, fresh air never seemed so refreshing. We walked down the mountain path and looked about, and found the path that Miku-san took on the Globe Sim.

"Hey, let's stretch our legs," I offered, indicating the path. Neru-chan nodded in understanding, while Ruko-san threw out a causal 'Why Not?'.

We took to the path, trying to figure out what Miku-san had been looking for, when we spotted two people lying on the ground a distance away. I looked at Neru-chan and she exchanged glances. Ruko-san looked at us questioningly. We walked over to them, but was horrified to what we saw.

Len Kagamine-san was lying on the ground motionless with a large kitchen knife in his back; and there was Sukone-san, and over there she was, and at the bottom of the hill was her dented head, and so forth. We silently turned and walked away.

Kagamine-chan was not going to be happy.


	3. Broken Arc 3: Alls Hallow Eve

HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! I have become far superior than the rest of my kind and those who dared call me weak by merging with this humanoid creature of Metal and Energy! Now I can rule over them all!

I raised the creature's right arm with ease. It looked human enough, but just under the durable artifice this creature had for skin was metal, hard metal. This creature was more advanced than the rest of what mankind can make, since it had human senses and, of all the pitiable things I was going to miss not having, _feelings_.

It might've been built onto one of those humans, but it was still awesome to see all the things they can amount to. Lean, beautiful girls and massive, powerful guys that can destroy entire cities of any dominion on a daily basis, not including ruling over what's left. It's going to be a wonderful life.

But first, I have to do something about this ugly greenish-blue flat-chested teenaged themed form. And I also need a name.

"Heh," I chuckled as I realized that I could use the memories still with the body for the foundation of this new life. I picked up my lantern and began my customization.

Like I just said, it's going to be wonderful.

Rin Kagamine

"T-they're d-d-dead?" I stuttered, as Yokune, Akita, and Yowane told me of Onii-kun's and Sukone's fates. "How? Tell me how!"

"We don't know what really happened, but…" Yowane started.

"It appears that Sukone fell from up here somewhere, and as for Len, it appears he was stabbed," Yokune finished.

"Do you know who did it?" I impatiently asked.

"We have an idea, but it gets complicated from there," Yowane started.

"Are you still connected to the database?" Akita asked.

"No, but I'm sure the landline still works."

"Can you show us, Kagamine-chan?" Yowane asked.

"Y-yes, Yowane-san," I said. "Could you call me by my first name?"

"Sure thing, Rin. Do the same thing for us, ok?" Yokune said.

"Yeah, Ruko." Ending the conversation, I led them into the conference room, where most of the landlines were. I noticed that Haku's tie had been severed and Neru had a serious burn on her arm. However, to minimize chances of ruining the moment, I asked the less serious damage first. "Umm, Haku. What happened to your tie?" I asked her.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, just noticing. "What happened indeed!"

"I thought you already knew what happened," Ruko said rudely.

"Same thing with Neru's arm. What happened to you guys up there?"

"Plenty of stuff. We'll explain it when we get in contact with Gumi, okay Rin-chan?" Haku said. She picked up a phone and started to dial Gumi's number when there was a knock on the door. The three of them jumped and stood stunned, which in turn scared me.

"I'll go answer it," I said, taking a step toward the door. Almost instantly Ruko dashed and over took my lead on the door, but once at the door, she motioned me to step back. She slowly turned the handle and opened the door, and relaxed to see that the two people who entered were Gakupo Kamui and Luka Megurine, the second set of mature Vocaloid; the first being Meiko and Kaito, who were actually the first official members.

"Good to know that most of you are still alive," Gakupo said. "Gumi sent us over to check on you, but it seems like it would be much better to leave this place." He looked the group over, and nodding, he resumed. "Let's move out. Quickly." He turned and walked out of the room. Haku put down the phone and with Ruko holding the door open, we exited the room with an unpleasant feeling.

Luka had brought the van, and we got into the vehicle in order of harm, Neru being first, then Haku, Ruko, and finally me. "Is that everyone?" Luka asked before starting up the car.

"There shouldn't be anyone…" Haku said.

"Oh! There's Miku!" I said, remembering the super-diva.

"No, there is definitely no one else we need to pick up. Drive," Ruko commanded, rude but urgently.

"What's wrong with Miku?" I asked, curious.

"Miku-san is not acting very well," Haku said, trying to sound sweet.

"Drive," Ruko repeated.

"Ruko-san and Haku-san, step outside of the car. I want to talk to you," Gakupo commanded, the two of them obeying quickly.

"What's going on?" I asked Luka, who was getting her seatbelt on.

"The group is undergoing some changes. Please bear with it." Luka looked down and waited for Gakupo to return to the car. However when the door opened again, he sounded slightly angry.

"Take Neru and Rin over to where Gumi said. The three of us have something to do here. I'll call when I head back. If," he told her. He leaned in for a kiss, and Luka gave him one.

"Be safe," she said, before Gakupo ducked back out and closed the door. She inserted the key and started the car. Sighing deeply, she drove off.

"Lantern"

I brushed my new orange and black hair in the mirror, and tied it up with purple and black ribbons. Luckily, there was enough for most of it, as my new hair reached down to the floor. My soul lantern found a place on a belt at my waist, and my scythe in my hands, begging for another taste of the white girl, and wanted to thank the yellow one for teasing it. "All in good time," I told it.

I walked around and opened the walls with ease and came across a terminal that read 'security' on the top. Below, I saw a simple number combo that read '7349' in a dotted message. Below that was a twelve button number pad. I pressed the top left, third row's right, second row's left, and the top right button.

"_SECURITY BLOCKS UNLOCKED,"_ the terminal spoke. The walls with the handles receded into the actual walls, opening the path to the stairs I was told to guard. Suddenly, I felt something strong was approaching, so I walked swiftly to the stairs, tightly gripping my scythe. When I reached said stairs, I looked down and saw three people at the bottom, two were from earlier and the other was very different.

He had long purple hair and wore a light warrior outfit, as well as possessing a sword. He looked up before ascending the stairs, and met my eyes. Sensing the murderous intent in them, I ran up the stairs to the roof. The other two were still unarmed, but it seemed that I had to deal with the warrior first anyway.

In an attempt to slow them down, I turned and used a bit of my soul lantern's powers to destroy the stairs behind me, and it hindered the two from earlier, but not in the least bit the warrior.

I burst through the door, and ran until the man couldn't simply exit and attack. Then I turned to see the man was already outside. He glared at me, his intent plainly visible. He drew his sword and straightened up when the two walked out. From the girl's memories, his name was Gakupo Kamui, the 'Thundering Samurai'.

"Do you have something we can call you by?" said the girl with red and blue hair and eye coloration. Ruko Yokune.

That's right. I've yet to name my new self. I wanted something dark, something that would describe me. I seeped into the old girl's memories and found something I could use. "Kiru Meikane," I told them.

"To us, that's 'Cutting Underworld Anthem'. Are you sure that's what you want?" she replied.

"Most definitely," I said, liking the meaning. I raised my scythe into pre-striking stance, waiting for Gakupo or any of the girls to strike.

"Meikane-san, please lower your weapon and give us back our friend," the other girl said. Haku Yowane, the one whose tie I happily severed on our first meeting.

"That Halloween gear is seriously out of season," Ruko said curtly.

"Kutabare!" I shouted at both of them. "This is MY new body! I'll give it to your dead friend when I don't want it any more!" I grabbed and opened the cage and pulled out the soul and consumed it. Haku and Ruko got surprised looks on their faces, while Gakupo looked angrier. But soon, like all the souls I consumed, I felt stronger, and my vision warped. No, from my perspective, every bit of me got warped.

I lunged at Gakupo, my upper body stretching towards him first, then the scythe and the rest of my body following. Gakupo jumped back, jumped towards me and slashed. I parried and struck him, the scythe trailing across his chest creating the familiar red blood line on his upper body.

He jumped back and moved away from me. I took advantage and leapt over him, landed next to the two girls, and then spun with the scythe out stretched. Caught unaware, both girls were slain, their souls sucked into the lantern. The lifeless bodies, still with shocked faces, dropped to the ground. The samurai, witnessing this, ran to put distance between us and we resumed our stand off.

But instead of stopping dead, his body began to glow with blue electronic lights. The girl's, Miku's, memories told me that this was when he was his strongest. I placed the refilled lantern onto its perch at my side, and prepared to go onto the defensive. His sword, reacting to the change in power, sparkled with purple-colored energy.

A helicopter sounded in the distance, probably his backup. He charged at me without holding back. I spun my scythe twice, the second time striking straight for him. He nimbly dodged, but lost his attack and hit the rooftop. The contacted caused it to cleanly slice apart and the severed part began to slide down, crumbling. I tried to move off the segment, but was met with the samurai predicting my move and moved accordingly. He stepped in front of me, and reflexively thrust his charged sword through my stomach and pulled it out quickly, effectively wrecking my innards, but he didn't finish me. But I don't think that was the goal.

RUNNING/USER/HATSUNE-M/SYSTEM/EMER-SHUTDOWN.

After that stab, I reached into my lantern and grabbed a soul and placed it into my mouth, but I suddenly couldn't move afterwards. Gakupo looked down on me as I went down with the falling corner of house. The helicopter appeared behind him moments later, with a young girl with green hair and black gothic clothes raised a gun and shot me onto my back with deadly accuracy. As the segment cleared the side of the building, Gakupo was whisked off with the girl, who sent one last bullet through my right eye, disabling most of my sight.

For the first time in forever, I felt scared.

"Hold on a second!" I heard an eccentric disembodied voice shout a few minutes later, unrecognizable to both Miku and me. I felt someone catch and hold me in midair. "You would be the best gift and blackmail to torture someone with! Let's go!"

"No, don't take me anywhere," I tried to say, but I couldn't speak. The man began to move, and the "shutdown" program hit.


	4. Broken Arc 4: Failure to Rescue

"Luka, take Neru and Rin over where Gumi said. There's something the three of us need to do here, concerning Miku. I'll call when I head back," Gakupo said quickly, then in a lower and less steady voice, "if."

I understood what he meant, but let him go. The situation had turned for the worse, and he might not come back. "Be safe," I told him, and he closed the door and left.

"What's going on?" Rin asked. She was still so young and innocent, yet she had her life being torn from her. She lost her brother, Len, and soon, most likely everyone around her was disappearing. Yet she couldn't do very much to stop it all. Who could?

"The group of Vocaloids is undertaking dramatic changes. Please bear with it for a little longer," I said, not wishing to elaborate. I started up the car, and shifted into reverse, drove back and to the side, and then shifted gears, driving off.

We didn't get very far when the first thunderclap echoed from the mansion we left behind. I heard Rin shift in her seat to look back, but fortunately stayed quiet. I heard then saw a helicopter heading the opposite direction, as well as a few people traveling by road.

The stress began to build too high and I had to pull over. I put the car into park and looked back in time to see a flash of light followed closely by a second thunderclap. A section of the building began to slide and crumble off, and a third and final thunderclap resounded. I could barely see the glowing blue figure of Gakupo in his Hyper-mode standing over the darker figure of Miku, who was standing on the sliding part of the building.

The helicopter hovered over Gakupo before a gunshot sounded, causing the figure of Miku to fall back on the segment. Gakupo grabbed the ladder that the helicopter dropped, and started to move away from the building when a second gunshot resounded. The segment cleared the building, and the helicopter turned away from it, toward safety.

I sighed for relief that Gakupo made it out safely, but started to worry about Haku and Ruko, who had gone with him. My cell phone began to ring and I answered it.

"Hello," I greeted.

"Hey, I'm headed out of there," my samurai told me, sounding exhausted. "Are you and the others alright?"

"Yes, we're perfectly fine. Are you alright? You sound tired," I said.

"Yeah, I'm fine, but…" he trailed off. "Haku and Ruko aren't coming with us."

"Oh." I sat in silence, not knowing what to say.

"Is that Gakupo?" Rin asked, curious.

"Yes, it is," I said, trying to keep my voice level.

"Are Ruko and Haku alright?" Neru asked.

"No," I said. If Ruko and Haku weren't coming, what were the ground units were for? I asked Gakupo, who then turned the question over to someone with him.

"Hello?" Gumi said, taking over the phone.

"I'm here," I replied.

"Did you say something about ground units?"

"Yeah. If Haku and Ruko weren't coming with us, then what did you call them for?"

"I- I didn't. I recommend that you get out of there as soon as possible. Turn this helicopter around!" I heard her say before hanging up. I put the phone onto my lap and switched gears back. With one last look at the crumbling building, I drove off to the Director's office, where Gumi said to meet her.

Gakupo

Between the two, Luka was more like the mother and Gumi was the father. However, neither one was interested in each other as they had someone they were with. But even then I believe Gumi would hesitate when faced with the command to execute her. Forget the rest of us for the most part, but that was because until Luka entered the scene, Gumi's only pastime was spent at the firing range.

"Tell me if you see an unfamiliar car," Gumi said. pulling out a large weapon crate, she opened it and assembled an anti-tank gun. She loaded an explosive round and held it strapped down in a chair. It was obviously heavy, since Gumi's back arched, but she must have been deterred enough not to care.

We spotted Luka's van head down the road alone, bumping mildly on the rough terrain. We traced the path up, trying to give Gumi the best possible shot, even though all she needed was a clear line of sight.

Soon enough, we saw the trucks Luka had indicated, but they seemed empty. Nevertheless, Gumi took the shot, the accurate shot obliterating the vehicles. However, the recoil shook the copter a bit, but skillfully the pilot got it under control.

Gumi reloaded, taking about two minutes for Gumi to take a breath to calm down. Looking toward the ruins, I could see a couple more trucks Luka might have missed. Gumi taking aim, placed her finger on the trigger and began pulling back when it snapped back to the side of the trigger. I looked to see about four men loading Meikane's body, which I believed to have trashed, into one of the trucks.

Quickly, Gumi took the round from the gun and carefully placed it into its holder, followed by the disassembled anti-tank gun itself. Trading the gun for a sniper rifle, she quickly took aim, but during that time the people had gotten in and were taking off.

Left with shooting out the tires, she made short work of the truck which contained Meikane. The people in the other truck halted and were quickly loaded with the precious luggage. Gumi took advantage of their delay to put the sniper rifle in my hands and told me not to do anything. She reassembled the anti-tank gun and loaded the explosive round once more.

"Don't destroy what we're trying to save," I reminded her.

She shook her head, saying, "I know, I know." She aimed at the canyon wall, trying to find a place to collapse. When she found a good spot, she fired. Not watching her shot, she again disassembled the gun and stored it away again. "Get on the ground!" Gumi called to the pilot, taking the sniper rifle from me.

The pilot landed close to the collapsed rock pile and Gumi zipped out. She took perch and shot three or four times before a backup jeep arrived to save the cargo. I brought out the anti-tank gun and Gumi reassembled the gun like magic and loaded it. She brought it over to the edge and blasted away the jeep.

Desperate men take desperate measures. I brought several more rounds of anti-tank bullets and the sniper rifle with its kind of rounds. Just in time too, as several more jeeps and a helicopter of their own appeared to take their prize. Not going to happen.

I jumped down and sprinted to Meikane, drawing my sword. I felt that my anger at her taking Miku's body, thus dishonoring it, rather than pass on be diverted by the situation towards the people trying to take her. I found her under emergency supplies that the dead men scattered around were hoarding. Wasting no time, I sheathed my sword and removed her from the truck, then carried her back.

It wasn't until I started back up the hill did I notice that we had another member on our team. The pilot had shutdown the plane and picked up the sniper rifle and was helping Gumi pick off the invaders with it.

The pilot was an android like us modeled like a young woman with red hair and eyes, with a hair-antenna. The only difference was that she had exposed joint sockets and electric components but did not seem to mind. She noticed me and turned to nudge Gumi. Gumi shot once more before retreating to the copter. Gumi had been shot in the shoulders but did not show signs of feeling it, while the pilot didn't have any wounds.

I sprinted toward the copter from where I was when someone shot me in my own shoulder, causing me to stumble. I did an improper somersault and was stuck to the ground for a moment. Enough time for the man to catch up and take Meikane. I drew my sword and chased after the guy, managing to catch up to him and repeatedly slashed him in the back, but he only dropped after the fiftieth.

Damn these persistent men. I knelt down to pick Meikane up but when I did, another guy came out of nowhere and kicked me down. Picking up Meikane, he gave me a smirk and walked back to his vehicle. I tried to stand and give chase, but the moment I started to walk I wobbled too much on this uneven ground and fell over. I tried to crawl but my arms wouldn't budge.

I gripped my sword and tried to enter Hyper mode, but my battery couldn't hold it for more than a second.

Sorry Meikane and Luka. Sorry Gumi and the pilot. I had done all I could but I still couldn't save just one person.

I woke in the hospital to the sound of Luka crying by the side of the bed. Rested, I reached out with my slightly bandaged arm and put it on the side of the bed she was on. She picked it up and looked at me, tears flowing down her cheeks. "I thought you were dead!" she said, choking on sobs as she tried to calm down.

"I thought I was to, but I'm not. I'm with you, " I told her.

"Forty-seven bullet holes and an armor-piercing round to the shoulder and you can still pull off the romantic type? I almost wish Piko was like you," someone on the other side of me said. I turned to see the pilot of the copter smiling at me. She wore a mid-thigh length coat with fluffy shoulder pads and a belt that displayed "A2" on the buckle. The dominant colors of her outfit were white, pink and black.

"The name's SF-A2 codename miki, or just miki for short."

"I'm Gakupo Kamui, and this is Luka Megurine," I said, while Luka had turned around wiping her face off.

When she finished, she turned back and bowed, saying, "nice to meet you, miki-san."

"Oh! Please don't worry about using honorifics. We're in the same boat, being Vocaloids and all, so just call me miki," miki said politely. "Oh!" she said, remembering something. "I'll invite Piko next time I visit! Why didn't I bring him?"

"Piko?" I asked.

"Yeah! Piko Utatane is a young boy with an adorable and feminine voice. He's still learning, but I'm teaching him how to interact with others!" she boasted cheerfully.

"What and how are you teaching him?" I asked, unnerved by her overly cheerful attitude. What she said was truly concerning.

"I'm teaching him to interact with others and how to cook, and although he can read and write, he needs plenty of work with his drawings. And one of the ways I teach him is through shojo manga and I occasionally bring him to my school to see if he's ready to interact with people! Though a dirty scene sneaks in every now and then, I step in and skip it. But it's occurring more and more the higher the age level we shoot for, but then we have to trudge through it and explore what the people are doing and I think we are about ready to start practicing through application, though I'm worried that he's not-"

"Okay! We get it! You're teaching him life lessons through adult books. Just how old is he?" Luka said, trying to keep her voice low.

"Like thirteen, if I can remember correctly."

"Thirteen and you're teaching him- Ah, that's just wrong!" Luka half-whispered. "And just how old are you now?"

"About seventeen. Why?"

Luka sighed, placing her hands on her temples and rubbed her forehead.

_Biri Biri! Biri Biri! _miki's phone chimed. She flipped it out and answered it. "Hello? Yeah, he's right here. Yep, want me to put him on? 'kay!" She held out the cell, telling me, "Gumi wants to talk to you."

I took the phone and said, "Hello?"

"Gakupo! How are you feeling?" Gumi asked.

"Good. Did I really get hit forty-something times?"

"Somewhere around there, but they weren't effective against someone as strong as you. So, did miki tell you what's going on?"

"No, miki didn't mention anything. What's going on?"

"We've located Meikane and just before we were going in to take her, we found out that she's going to be sold at an illegal auction in a few days. The Director figured that if we allow the auction to take place and then interrupt it, we would be rescuing more than just one person and we would be able to capture a ton of criminals also! The Director was hoping that you could join us, but…"

"Don't wait up for me. I've got someone to take care of. Well, you managing just fine? I saw you take a pretty big hit to the shoulder."

"Yeah, It's almost gone now, and it will be completely so by then. I've got to go, so I'll see you soon!"

"Same here," I said, before handing the phone back to miki. She continued to talk to Gumi for a few moments later before hanging up.

"I'm heading home. I've got to prepare dinner or Piko will burn the skillet again. Have a good evening!" she said before leaving the room. I turned to Luka, who didn't look like she could stay awake much longer.

"Why don't you go home and get some rest?" I told Luka, who looked like she could use it. "I'll be right here tomorrow, so don't you worry about me."

"Yeah, okay," she said reluctantly. She leaned down and kissed my forehead, before leaving.

"Have a good night," I told her, and she turned and blew me a kiss, before disappearing behind the door. I fell asleep soon after that, still tired from the failed rescue.

I still felt sorry that Meikane slipped through my fingers, but I had to let that go for now. Though something about the whole relax at home while the police raid is conducted felt wrong, though I would say it's nice.

Let the pieces fall where they fall, I guess.

* * *

**"Ritsu" *snicker***

**More importantly, I will be changing the first two Chapters due to how confusing it was going to end up (having all this happen before the Meiko/Kaito chapter and having Gumi state that only Len and them died, when in fact there were... several deaths before then) - noted May 8th, 2011**


	5. Broken Arc 5: In the Background

"Are they going to be alright?" Rin asked when we finally pulled onto the main road. No more of these random dirt road bumps.

"I'm sure they will be fine," Luka told her, over the explosions in the background. I wasn't so sure about that, but I didn't voice my opinion. Even though this hideout was seriously far out in the middle of nowhere, the horde of jeeps and trucks that we passed by didn't seem lost.

Driving by like they had all the time in the world, Luka stayed as calm as possible, though Rin was looking at the chain of offroad vehicles like she was determining her first car. As things were progressing, I don't even think I was going to get my own car.

The train of vehicles didn't thin out until least a mile had passed, but it was still visibly long. None of them swerved to impede or stop us, even though they had the man power for it. Three unarmed girls, one with a burn and two that had high emotions running, driving in a non-offroad van straight past a militia of offroad vehicles and they probably knew it, but we drove right past them unhindered.

Soon, the train of cars disappeared behind the rugged hills and terrain. Rin sat back and took a sigh of relief, then jumped when she heard another helicopter coming. "What are they doing? Are they taking over the place? Or are they trying to destroy it? Either way, I'm not going back there. Ever," Rin chattered.

Eventually, we saw the first sky scraper of the city. The sun no longer seemed to move during all of this travel, but I doubt only an hour or two had passed since we woke up in the virtual simulator. I looked at Rin, who had dozed off.

She was the only child Vocaloid left, and she was going to stay that way until we found others or the Director could get permission to build more.

Luka drove on, an impassive expression stuck onto her face. She had lost three of her best friends while I could only attest to two, though it didn't matter in the least who lost how many as compared to someone who didn't lose anything.

The drive hummed on. I felt drowsy when we entered the city nearly an hour later, and started to close my eyes when Luka finally stopped the car.

"We're here," she said, and I nudged Rin awake.

"Wha…?" Rin muttered as she woke, stretching. Luka unbuckled herself, and yawned herself. We got out of the van and stretched once more, finding ourselves at the Vocaloid Registry office. "Why did Gumi have us come here?" she asked.

"So we could get Neru to the Director, I think," Luka said emptily. I looked at her, but she didn't look toward me. She must be worried about Gakupo and Gumi, who must be fighting for their lives right now.

"So there you are!" the Director said, walking out of the office building. He was a tall and muscular man, but in slight contrast to what he usually wore, he wore a white shirt, red tie, and tan slacks and vest. "Akita Neru, right? How's your arm?"

I looked at the burn on my left arm, which had melted through the fabric of my detached sleeve. I realized that this is the last thing I will remember Haku and Ruko by. "Just fine," I said, looking up.

"Well, come on in," he said holding the door open. I took his offer and walked in. Closing the door behind him, he led me further into the building before I realized something.

Gakupo and Luka came to the mountain house to check on us, not to pick us up by what he said. They were told by Gumi to come here afterwards, although Gakupo never really interacted with anyone outside the vicinity of his home, besides Luka. All that pair with the basis that Gakupo was a warrior, not a businessman, led me to believe this was not actually part of the Vocaloid system, but an invading company or similar, possibly the one that reconfigured the original Miku Hatsune into Tei Sukone, whom we had to divide partially up to remake Miku, who got hijacked yet again.

I looked at the man posing as the Director. He looked slightly different than the man that brought me to life, but the familiar feeling was completely shattered. We walked down corridor after featureless corridor, when finally a lone door appeared at the end of the hall.

"Ladies first," he said, opening the door and holding it for me. I walked through the threshold and looked in amazement as the memories of waking up in the science lab returned to me. But it wasn't this room. It had the appearance of a science lab, but it was a replica of what a science fiction lab would be, not even remotely close to my own.

"Wow," I said with exaggeration, looking around.

"Brings back memories, doesn't it?" the fake Director prompted. I walked around, seeing what interesting details he had came up with. There were the large electrical cords hanging from the ceiling, branching down to the sides of each terminal put against the walls. I felt them, as if remembering how much it felt to me.

I backed away from the cords and felt something poke the back of my neck.

RUNNING/AKITA-N/VOICE/SHUTOFF.

I turned and saw the fake Director standing behind me, looking down on me. "You know this place isn't for real, I mean, yeah, it might look similar to your own, but it isn't. Man, the Vocaloid androids really are idiots," he said to himself. Grabbing my arm, he dragged me to the other side of the room, but when I gripped onto a table to resist, he grabbed my ponytail and pushed me around, causing me to lose my grip on the table.

He dragged me into a hidden side room, where rather than being a storage closet, it appeared to be a bedroom. As we entered, a young girl in a maid outfit approached us and greeted us with a smile. She appeared to be only ten or elven years old, with soft brown hair and eyes. Shouldn't she be in school? "Welcome back, master. Would you like anything?" she said sweetly, ignoring me.

"Clean up the main room. We don't need the mock sci-fi lab setup anymore," he said, without care for what she actually did. She hurried off, bouncing with slight enthusiasm. Waving her off, he dragged me onto the bed and pushed me into a seriously unwanted position. I tried to kick him but my leg was caught and he threw me to the floor.

"Trying to resist? Every other girl in this building lets me do what I want, and you won't be any different. Even if you resist, I will overcome you," he said, gleaming down at me. I pulled myself into a sitting position and glared back at him. He chuckled, and grabbed my legs and tried to twist them so I would turn over onto my stomach, but I turned them the other way so they wouldn't.

"Goddamn it, stop resisting!" he said, lifting my body and throwing me back onto the bed. I turned around quickly, but he spun me the same direction faster and I ended up where I started. I looked at him before he pushed my knees under me and saw the young girl enter the room.

"Master, what should I tell the guests that have arrived?" she said. Guests? Hope that people have arrived at the right moment to save me filled me.

However, ignoring that the girl was in the room, the fake Director reached around my waist and tore off my skirt. "Tell them that I'm busy, or something that will please them to go away," he told the young girl. I tried to kick him again but he put his leg on mine and pinned it down. He reached up and grabbed a hold on my undergarment, and took his time removing them.

I reached out with both hands and desperately tried to hit him, but ended up flailing in the air. Tears welled up in my eyes as he leaned down and assaulted me with his tongue. I grabbed the sheet covers beneath me and pulled with all my might to somehow use them to separate me from him, but to no avail.

The door suddenly burst open and I heard Luka yell something at the man. I turned and saw Luka half running half-striding to us, clearly mad. The man let go of me and backed away, but Luka still walked to him and kicked him in the face. Then the stomach and the groin. "Get out of here. Now!" she yelled, and then grabbed him and threw him toward the door.

I sat up and grabbed my undergarment and my skirt and put them on. Luka took a deep breath, and looked at me, calmer. "Did he get any farther?" she asked, and I shook my head. I pointed at my throat and she nodded in understanding. I turned around and she turned my voice back on.

RUNNING/AKITA-N/VOICE/TURN-ON.

"Thank you very much," I said, standing. She smiled.

"Umm," the little girl said, entering the room. "Can you take us with you? When Master gets back, he's going to hurt us because of this, and he's already going to sell us on auction, so we'll have to be extra careful not to disturb him," she said, looking more and more like she was going to break down.

"Yes, we'll take all of you," Luka said gently. "How many are there of you?"

"Eight," she said, slightly sobbing. "But there's a ninth one on the way, to fill in for the 'Halloween' spot."

"'Halloween'? Which spot are you filling?" Luka asked, helping the child stay calm, leading her out. I followed a few steps behind.

"Independence Day," she said.

"So the theme of the auction is American holidays. I see," Luka noted.

"The people who are in charge said that there aren't enough holidays, that they're going to use two of the seasons, Winter and Spring, to fill in those spots."

"Do you call each other by your roles or by nicknames?"

"Neither, we aren't supposed to talk outside of telling each other what Master tells us to tell the others."

"Let's round up the others and get out of this place, okay? So, where are they?" Luka asked. The little girl pointed to another hidden room, which was partially blocked by a sci-fi desk.

Moving the desk away, I opened the door to find six of the seven girls we were supposed to find. None of them looked older than the ten year old beside us, and they didn't seem too healthy. When they saw the door open, they looked at us and jumped up excited.

"Luka," I said, getting her attention. "Load the girls up in the van. I'll stay and look for the missing girl." Luka nodded and rounded up the surprised but excited girls, leading them out of the building. I pulled one aside and told her what I needed to do.

"Okay!" she said.

"What do they call you?" I asked.

"I'm supposed to be 'Spring', so I'll be Spring," she said.

"Spring," I repeated, before looking to see if the others had left the room. "Okay, Spring, let's look for the girl." I started to walk, then stopped. Turning back to Spring, I asked, "Do you know where the other girl is?"

"She's through the door right over there!" Spring said, pointing towards a door half hidden by a stand. I walked over to the door, with Spring following me. Slowly opening the door, I heard the young girl in the room sighing heavily.

I'll come back later, I decided. Closing the door softly, I led Spring out of the building, ignoring the confused look on her face.

Luka had put all the girls into the van, and was standing outside it waiting for us. "What about the other girl?" she asked.

"She can wait," I told her. She gave a curious look but did not press for an answer. Spring jumped into the back of the van, and after I shut the van door, took the other front seat. I locked my seat belt and turned around to check on Rin. She was stuck between the window and the two other girls that shared her seat. Spring took to the back, which had three other girls already. "Let's roll," I said.

We drove to where Haku and I had stayed when we weren't on tour, and unloaded the girls, including Rin, and told her to take care of them. With a curt reply, Rin agreed to do so, and we left to pick up the last girl.

But before we left, I took a dusty gun and a folding knife that Haku hid away, and handed the gun to Luka. Understanding, she took one of Haku's belts and put it on after attaching the holster to it. This time, I won't be defenseless.

We arrived at the building with anticipation for something to go terribly wrong. We prepared our weapons after parking the car, Luka making sure she had a full magazine and I didn't have a rusty knife. Then we exited the car and entered the building.

The interior hadn't changed from an hour ago, but we looked around to make sure that no one was around. We drew our weapons before checking the two rooms we had been to earlier. They were still empty. Taking a sigh of breath, we made a sweep of the main room before moving towards the hidden room.

I opened the door slowly, while Luka looked in. After opening the door wide, I looked also, and we entered. There was a bend immediately in, and following that was another long bending featureless corridor. Following it carefully, Luka in front and me checking our rear, we came unhindered to a lone door, devoid of design. I opened the door and Luka entered, gun at the ready.

I looked in, ready to do something, but there wasn't anything in the room. No young girls involved with older, perverted men. I scanned the room over before turning to leave. Luka was looking over a desk in the corner, reading something over. I walked over to her and saw a couple of business sheets. I started reading it when Luka reached for a pencil and piece of paper and began jotting stuff down.

"What is it?" I asked.

"There's a auction for these girls in a few days," she told me.

"Auction?" I repeated, surprised.

"They're not real girls. They're like, android prototypes, like a step below us. Only, they're completely artificial except for one: the young girl named 'Independence Day'."

"You got all that from these papers that fast?" I asked.

"Well, I do at least half of the paperwork of the group," she complained. "I should be able to finish them and write the needed information fast."

"Why do you do most of the work?" I asked, curious. She looked at me, trying to remember something.

"Were you around during the 'Scissoroid' incident?"

"No… Scissoroid?"

"Never mind then." She said, tossing my question aside, and continued writing her notes then finished by dragging the pencil across the paper and throwing it to the side dramatically. It soared through the air and lodged it self into the wall.

She piled the documents and placed the note card on it. Fishing out a clip, she clamped the whole thirty-something paper set and picked it up. Making one last scan of the now completely empty room, we returned to the main room to find a lone person standing in the center of the room, and that person was Kaito.

"Oh, hey," Luka said surprised.

"Hello. Gumi sent me over here to meet the Director. Is he here?" the blue haired man said, nonchalant to me.

"No, he left some time ago. I'm just finishing up some paperwork and heading out. Do you want to come with us?"

"I have some other business to attend to, so no, I'm afraid," Kaito apologized. he turned and walked further in, while we turned and left. One last look at Kaito, and I saw him smiling gently, holding his gun at me and pretending to fire.

Suddenly, before I left the room, I felt him say, "Urotander's watching you. Very closely." A chill ran down my back.

"Where's Winter-chan?" Spring asked Luka, which the others echoed. I had moved into the other room and sat down, ignored. Rin was laying across the couch reading a manga titled _Ghost in the Shell_, the cover image depicting a militaristic series.

"The bad guys got her, but we know where she's being held!" Luka exclaimed, raising her fist for emphasis. The girls bought the cheesy act, and cheered her on. "But before I can go, I need to make the call of plot advancement!" she walked proudly to the phone in this room, the kids following behind and cheering. The papers still in her hands, she removed the note card and handed it to me, then lead them on an endless march throughout the house.

I took the note card and moved into my bedroom and took out a replacement cell phone from the pile of extras that had accumulated due to the many types of cell phones. I picked one at random and noted that it was a keyboard cell, my most favorite type of cell phone. Dun dun dun da!

I pulled out the number directory and texted Gumi, "Call when able." Within several moments, it began to ring. "Hello."

"Hello, is Luka there?" Gumi greeted, sounding out of breath.

"Yeah, she's with the kids we rescued. What's going on?" I asked.

"Kids? What kids?"

"The kids that the fake director was holding hostage. Were there not supposed to be kids?"

"No, that was where the Director said he was, so I told Luka and Gakupo to go over there to meet him after checking on you, but it appears that it was more of a job and you pulled it off just well."

"Mostly. We lost one," I said, sitting on the bed. "But at least we know where they're headed."

"Where?" I looked at Luka's notes and found they were written in a different language, using much less characters than either English or Japanese.

"Umm… She wrote them in a different language. I can't tell you," I said.

"Well, tell her to bring it with her to the hospital. I'll meet her there."

"Okay, I'll let her know," I said, hanging up. I put the phone into my pocket and walked out of my room, and found Luka on the couch surrounded by the six kids and Rin in the same place, everyone asleep. I nudged Luka awake.

"What is it, Akita-san?" Luka asked, tired.

"Gumi wants to meet you at the hospital with the papers we collected," I said, trying to stay as calm as possible as I realized why she was going to the hospital.

Luka stood up slowly, and walked and picked up her keys. Then, with a deep breath, walked quickly out of the house. Symbolically, her hair covered her eyes as a single tear raced down and dripped onto the floor before she closed the door.

The kids slept merrily on, the six dreaming sweet dreams. I smiled, then noticed there were six, not seven. In total, there were nine, but one hadn't arrived yet and the other had been left with the fake Director, but the last one, the seventh, had disappeared. I turned and ran to the front to see if I could tell Luka, but one my way I bumped into the seventh girl. It was Independence Day.

"Where were you? I was scared that you disappeared like that," I told her.

"I was just using the bathroom," she said.

"Well, come over here with the others," I said, leading her to the other girls.

"I heard someone calling out to another person called 'Urotander'. Is he some kind of hero?" I froze.

"Could you sit with the other girls? I have to make sure of something," I told her, before reaching for my cell and finding that I had no service, despite the tower being right outside and a personal network set up inside.

Kaito had told me that this Urotander person was watching me. Very closely. I ran to the blinds and closed them, and then ran around the house locking the doors and closing the blinds. I dashed up the stairs and did the same for my room and the office. After closing the blinds in my bedroom, I stopped to catch a breath.

Exhausted, I sat on the bed. There was a soft rap on the door, and Independence day entered, along with someone who looked like me. I reached for the knife in my pocket, but found that it had been taken. As if to mock me, the doppelganger reached and took out the knife, and drew the blade.

"If Urotander can't see you, you don't exist," Independence Day told me in a creepy voice.

"Please no," I begged to futile effort. On both their faces smiles appeared, and Independence Day's smile reached her eyes. In one last attempt, I pulled out my cell, now with full service suddenly, and texted Gumi seven characters before the doppelganger attacked me. I hit the send button and dropped to the ground, the doppelganger catching the cell and read it aloud.

"'I'm Dead'," it read, and I closed my eyes as the send tone beeped. I reached out and grab the doppelganger in a death grip. "Let go!" she said, kicking her feet around trying to rid herself of me. I held on until I could feel my fingers contract and stiffen around her leg, then held on until she stabbed me the rest of the way to death.


	6. Broken Arc 6: Auction Lull

The young man pranced about the wide auction cage, anxious like this was his first time up, which it seemed to be. He wore a large white mask that covered everything from forehead to neck, excluding cheeks, with black outlining his eye sockets.

He had everything in the world to be afraid of in this auction. This one was conducted at night, in the gallery of a museum, and no one was selling common merchandise. Everyone could do that in the light of day and not be arrested.

Our kind of merchandise could only be sold and conducted during this time of day and only after the security guard was dispatched. These were obviously illegal, if you haven't noticed, and everyone here, regardless of stature, would be arrested and sent straight to jail, then escape if one wasn't shy about giving the jury a bribe.

The cycle of corruption, starts with need, ends with more need for greed.

The man tapped the podium for attention, which most of us were giving already. Another man walked onstage and stood next to the man, with a nameplate stating nothing but Regulation Staff. "Welcome, men and gentlemen. Today, we have a seasonal collection, based on the various holidays and Seasons, at least according to the American calendar." He motioned to the cage and the Regulation Staff removed the cover on the cage, revealing what we had all came for. "Each one is bought in twos, with no set pair for unlimited combinations."

Eight or nine girls; all dressed for every occasion. New years, Valentine's Day, Easter, Independence, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Winter, and Spring. The other seasonal themes were missing, but this was enough. Everyone of the girls looked delicate and in character, each having the best outfit for their theme, as well as a matching bonus object.

New Years came with kid-safe fireworks; Valentine's Day with heart shaped wings; Easter a box of colored Easter eggs, probably hard-boiled; Independence an American Confederate flag; Halloween an old fashioned hand lantern that was lit with white light; Thanksgivings held a filled cornucopia, possibly with fake food; Christmas had a Styrofoam snowman strapped to her back; Winter had a thermos, most likely empty; and Spring was idling with her stuffed bunny doll.

Out of all of them, I wanted both Independence for the Confederate flag and Halloween, since there really wasn't anyone else I wanted. "The auction is now up for purchase."

Everyone scrambled for the front, hoping that they will get their pick. I slipped out the back and walked around to the stage, staying in the shadows as much as possible. Some others were doing the same, but only a scraggly few, not really noticed. The Regulation Staff dealt with keeping the impatient people from climbing the stage and grabbing for the cage, and he did very well, while the Auctioneer met with those who were more reserved.

"Which two would you like, sir?" the gentleman calmly greeted me.

"I would like Independence Day and Halloween, if you would be so kind," I asked, and I gave him the approximate value for the girls. He handed me the Proof of Ownerships for the two girls, and told me to wait in the back, which I did. Three other masked men walked back here; and it was plain to tell that there was only one left, leaving an incomplete set of two. The one that was left was Winter, for some odd reason, rather than say Christmas or New Years. Anyway, it wasn't my concern which one was left to stay the hungering mass of lolicons and pedophiles.

Another member of the Regulation Staff walked onstage and retrieved our respective girls, and covered the cage with Winter still in it. She looked distant, and she was going to stay that way until the auction finally sold her. The Regulation Staff blindfolded the girls and assisted the owners to their cars, when I heard the first sounds of the S. W. A. T. team's guns. I grabbed Independence Day and pulled on Halloween's chains, dragging her along my attempt of an escape route that found me in front of a short green haired teen dressed in a black police vest and orange shirt, with a tan skirt that dropped to her knees.

I stopped in front of her loaded gun, which she aimed at my face, and followed her gesture to drop to my knees. Silently, she removed the blindfolds and gestured to the two girls to leave this place. "I can buy my way out of jail," I told the girl.

"And we have a jury that will donate your bribes to charity and still won't feel bad about sending you to prison," she retorted.

Hankyou

"Hankyou-chan! Hankyou-chan!" my mother called from downstairs. I saved the program in a text file for now and removed myself from the computer screen. Downstairs, Mom was frantically running about the kitchen, more than likely looking for the milk or bread. "Oh, there you are! It seems that we have run out of soy sauce! I was wondering if you could head down to the store and pick some up! Here," she said, pulling out her purse and withdrew more than enough for the sauce and handed it to me. "Use this.," she finished before continuing her 'cooking'.

I could only sigh and comply. I traded my house slippers for my running shoes, put on a light jacket, and walked out the door. It wasn't really that late enough for the store to close, so I took my time getting there. It was late October, so I should be thinking about my Halloween costume.

Peperon Jack, a friend of mine that shared my interest in discussing how holidays should be spent, would be dressing up as Jack Skellington, and trying to force Akuno, or Mothy as Peperon called him, another but less impulsive friend, into a Undead bartender costume, since he played as one on WoW. I preferred to roll an elven paladin.

Which was all great, until Peperon wrote a story on the both of our characters getting together.

Ick.

"Hankyou-san, right?" the clerk asked as I entered the store. "Your mother called just now. I took the liberty of getting her order of soy sauce."

"Thank you," I said, exchanging the sauce for its payment. "Sorry about my mother calling out of the blue," I told him.

"Ah, don't worry. There's still plenty of stranger people out there," he commented.

"Thank you for the sauce!" I said to the clerk before departing. The doors closed behind me, and I traced the way back home in my head.

However, by following the simple map that should have led me home, I had found the museum, that was blocked off by the police. The measly crowd of people who had gathered was being told that a hostage situation had been taking place inside, and that it was safer for us to stand outside. Not really interested, walked on.

I took one last look at the crowd, finding that people were being released in large numbers by stretcher, slightly unnerving me. I turned and resumed my march when two girls, dressed in holiday themed outfits, appeared on a side street and stopped to catch their breath.

I ran up to them, hoping they were all right. One of them, dressed in something from New Years or Independence Day, saw me and backed up, nudging the other one, in Halloween clothes. She looked up, but instead of backing up, she fetched her lantern, which looked very similar to a certain kind of ghosts', and held out her hand. I don't think the other girl saw what I did, but the air rippled before the Halloween girl's hand and a ghostly scythe appeared.

I stopped moving toward them and backed up. Halloween held the scythe towards me, but made no move to attack. "I'm here to help," I said, nervous. Halloween paused to register my words, and knelt down, using her scythe to hold her up.

"Meikane," she said. "Kiru Meikane." Cutting Underworld Anthem?

"Huh?" I said stupidly.

"My name," she told me, her scythe dematerializing.

Oh. "I'm Hankyou-" I froze when I saw yet another girl walk out from the side street, wearing a S. W. A. T. vest, holding her gun to the side. She was staring at me, looking me over.

"Let's go," the girl said, and Meikane-san and the other girl followed behind her. Passing me, Meikane-san shifted her eyes away. The police girl hung back, but only for a moment.

"Damn you, Creature!" someone shouted from the side street that the three girls came from. I turned to see a man poised to shoot his gun, handcuffed. I tried to duck, but Meikane-san suddenly grabbed my arm and dragged me elsewhere. The man opened fire, and I could see the girl in the S. W. A. T. vest fired only twice. The man dropped to the ground dead.

But even though the danger was gone, Meikane-san didn't let go.

For some time, we moved away from the area, the sirens of the police and ambulance muffled from distance. Meikane-san let go when we were a bit farther, and slowed to a walking pace. Soon, my house came in view.

"Do you think I can spend the night?" Meikane-san asked, softly.

I stopped for a moment, then continued. "S-sure! I mean, if my mother lets me," I replied. "Just don't mention anything that happened tonight. Pretend that you're from school and that…" I paused, trying to think of an excuse.

"I'm here to help you with your Halloween outfit," she prompted.

"Let's go with that," I said, unable to come up with something better.

Gumi

Watching the malicious program that had once been Miku Hatsune walk off with the young lady named Hankyou, I realized that if such program discovered feelings that it might eventually become friendly. Although…

"Keep watch on the missing person list incase a person named 'Hankyou' appears," I told the police officer whose car I was leaning on. Not listening to his complaint, I headed over to where Hiyama was beckoning me.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, but only this unregistered and the ghostly program survived. Why did those others short?" I asked him, directing the android to the back of the car.

"I can only say it was a failsafe," he said, opening the door of the police cruiser. I got in on the other side and secured my seat belt. I looked back at the unregistered android, the young girl barely looking ten. "You have a name?" I asked her.

"Kaai, Yuki, " the young girl said timidly. She caught my eye and shrunk into herself. It made me chuckle a bit.

"Yuki-chan, you're safe with us," Hiyama said, entering the car. He glanced at her before pulling his seat belt and securing it. Then he flinched, and looked at her again. "Yuki Kaai-san, by any chance do you attend Green Valley Elementary?" he asked. That made Yuki uncurl and look at him.

"Yes, how did you know?" she asked, curious.

"I work there in the mornings, as the math teacher," he boasted. I shot him a look, but he didn't notice.

We drove her to the police station and contacted her mother, whom we found interesting. After she and Yuki left, Hiyama drove us home, where I added the temporary id's of the lost androids to the list of deaths, and Yuki to the 'living' side. The two lists were almost equally matched in length, which unnerved me.

I saved the document and shut down the computer. Removing myself from the desk, I walked to my bed when I noticed that Yuki had taken to the couch. Not wanting her to be uncomfortable, I carried her to my bedroom and tucked her in.

Feeling restless, I stepped out onto the balcony. Me and Hiyama lived in a simple two-story house, similar to Kaito and Meiko and some of the other Vocaloids who could live on their own. But as things were changing, Rin was temporarily living with Gakupo and Luka, and Neru was at her own home. As for what we are going to do with the mansion on the mountain, the Director is still debating on that.

Getting some fresh air worked, as it calmed my nerves and seemed to lighten my mood. I had asked the Director what we were going to do about Meikane-Hatsune, but he handwaved it off saying as long as she stays off the radar, she'll be left alone. On the off chance that she does act up, he's given me permission to reset her data mainframe completely, but not to trash her still good body if possible.

I started to shiver in the cool night, so turned to reenter my house when I saw someone on a lamppost holding a ghostly scythe through the reflection on the sliding glass door.

"Do you wield a gun to protect someone or as a precaution in the case of being forced to shoot them in defense?" she muttered. "In either case, you don't want to ever have to even _aim_ at them. Am I correct?"

I had no answer for that, because in this situation, it felt like I was the only one who was going to survive being run over by destiny's cog wheel and still be in control of my own body. I turned to face the scythe wielder, drawing my gun and aimed, only for the gun to droop as I identified the newcomer, feeling more loss as I recognized the long pink tresses that were flowing behind her.

"In what state did you find her in? Dead? Alive? Or are you still Luka?" I asked her, tears beginning to well up, obscuring my vision.

"I can't say. With you artificial people it's hard to tell. One moment, your heart is not beating. Then it is suddenly. Though I will say that the warrior is really dead, since I had to piece him apart to make sure. He couldn't strike this body for some reason, even after I slashed him several times."

"And the others?" I asked.

"I don't know. There wasn't anyone else when I got there."

My legs felt like jello, but I tried my best to not break down before Luka, for I didn't know for sure that it really was Luka's body or if they had been even near their place. "If that's all you wanted, then good night." I turned to enter the house again when Luka snickered.

"Meikane's alright?"

"I don't know. She's not here."

"I know, but something's here that shouldn't be. Sweet dreams," Luka said before jumping from her lamppost and disappearing.

I reentered the house and locked the door. Something's here that shouldn't? Like what? Unable to grasp what it could be, I ducked into my room to change into my sleepwear and snuck into Hiyama's bed, which by now was warm with his body heat.


	7. Broken Arc 7: End World's Hotel

I looked at the time and yawned wide. It was about time to head to work, and today was a very important day for the company. I got out of bed and changed into work clothes, and did my morning rounds.

Stepping out into the living room, I saw Hiyama sitting at he table eating breakfast and reading the newspaper with Yuki beside him. Wait, why was Yuki here?

"Good morning, you two," I greeted.

"Good morning, Gumi-san," Hiyama replied, looking up.

"Good morning, Gumi-chan!" Yuki repeated.

"May I ask why are you here, Yuki-chan?" I asked.

"Didn't we invite her over?" Hiyama said, confusing me

"No, her mother took her home, then we came here and I found Yuki…" I trailed off, getting more and more confused. Suddenly, I thought that she might not be as innocent as she let on and reached for my gun. Hiyama flinched and Yuki ducked under the table with scared eyes.

"Don't let the crazy girl shoot me," she said.

"I won't let her shoot you," Hiyama said, comforting her. The phone began to ring, and I let go of the gun case.

"Hello," I said, picking up the phone.

"Is this the Kiyoteru residence?" a woman said on the other end, scared.

"Yes. Is there something we can help you with?"

"Yes, you see. I'm Yuki's mother, who came by yesterday to pick up my daughter, but when I got home, she was gone! I called the police department to see if she was still there, but they said she wasn't, so I asked for the people who were in charge, and they directed me to you. So, what I'm saying is that, is my daughter with you?"

"Yes, she's here. Do you want me to drop her off at the station?"

"Oh, that would be wonderful. Thank you very much, miss," she finished, hanging up. I turned back to the two at the table and found they had disappeared when I was making the call.

I turned a punched the wall angry as the Luka's words came to haunt me. Work forgotten, I pulled up the police directory and found Hankyou's address. I checked the time to find it was barely 5:30 on a Saturday, so they would probably be in bed still. I changed into more causal wear, and checked the house for anything that didn't belong, and found nothing.

I turned on my computer and found it was filled with malicious programs, so I shut it down and rebooted it in safe mode, and ran Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware to rid the system of a hefty number of viruses. I tried to start it up normally again but I found all the icons and names had been changed and the desktop filled with random files. I moved the mouse and saw it was a four pixel cube now.

Giving up on the computer, I shut it down and rubbed my forehead in defeat. I had no time to be dealing with an evil child right now. There was the always present issue of Kaito, possibly Meikane, and the jackass behind everything.

The phone began ringing. I rose from the chair and picked it up. "Kiyoteru Residence."

"Urotander is watching. Very-" I put the phone down and returned to my bedroom. I laid down onto the bed and fell asleep.

I woke up sometime later to someone shaking me. "Gumi! Wake up!" I sat up quickly and looked around, seeing Neru's body holding a knife on the floor dead. "Come on!"

The Luka grabbed my arm and dragged me from my bed, dizziness quickly coming and going. I stumbled over my feet trying to keep up with her, and soon we were out the door and into Luka's car. "What's going on?" I managed, panting.

"Urotander's trying to oust you but I still need you to take care of Meikane-tan," the woman said, and although she had the same face as Luka, she would be regarded as a separate entity. I recalled Neru's body and was even more worried.

"Just who is everybody now?" I said after listening to her and securing my seatbelt, drooping my head and supporting them on my hands.

"If you want to call me something other than Luka, who I guess was the previous owner, you can call me Keine Leben," Keine told me. "As for the girl back there, when I saw her, she was acting like she knew me, then screwed up and tried to kill me. I don't know why, but maybe you know what she was up to."

"She tried to kill you? Then that wasn't… then where's the real one?" I thought aloud. Something clicked in my head. "Tell me, why were you at my house?"

"Because after I took this body, you were the closest thing to this person after the swordsman. I stayed because I didn't know where to go afterwards. As for entering, I saw the girl back there appear and draw her knife after the man and kid drove off. As where the 'real' one is, I have no idea," she explained.

"Do you know whose this 'Urotander' person?" I asked. She started up the car and drove off, heading someplace she knew and I didn't.

" 'Urotander' is not a person, but a group of people who were given the opportunity to freely kill their 'competition' to receive something. As I found with the girl back there, this object is like the power to warp reality around them but at the cost of their conscience. They will lose all care for the people around them without care," she finished, taking a breath.

"So when you get a call saying, 'Urotander is watching', does it mean that they're targeting you?"

"It's safe to assume so." She turned this way and that, and soon we were passing the museum from yesterday.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"To where Kiru-tan is," she said.

"How do you know where she is?"

"You're not the only one I follow," she told me.

Hankyou

"Okay, now all that's left is figuring how to keep the hat on," Meikane said, picking up the worn sketch pad. She had practically over taken the design and put me to work, stitching the material she provided together how she asked, and soon we were done somehow. I rubbed my eyes, tired since we stayed up all night recreating Link's hero clothes. Was she not tired at all?

To sum our evening and night, when we walked in Mother had asked if I had brought the soy sauce and she and Meikane chatted over dinner. It felt like she was my girlfriend and I was introducing her to my family, despite my father not being here again for dinner. Meikane never talked about the event at the museum or anything related to it, and I had a feeling she never said anything real about herself.

Like how she had just finished her homework and was heading out for a snack when she ran into me. Shortly after dinner, mother had her call her parents, but I'm sure X-111-111-7349 wasn't it, but I didn't speak up. After a few well prepared excuses, she had my mother's approval to stay over.

"_I'm the Clown with the tear-away face, I'm the Who who answers back when you ask 'Who's there?'" _my speakers clamored. Meikane had pulled a strange cord from her neck and attached it to my stereo system and turned it on, and suddenly it began playing Halloween music. Her eyes lit up as well. "I'm charging. I haven't been able since my home was ruined," she had said. as she moved about, the cord continued out of the back of her neck, and did not stop even when she left the room to god knows where, the cord not even tensing against the length of cord.

When she came back in about a half hour later, she walked in with the supplies before me and the cord gently retracted. When I asked her where she went, she simply said, "To the store to pick up supplies."

I did not press any further. She then found the sketch pad I had been using to write down the code to my program that I remembered and closed down. not really caring about the program, she ripped the page out and picked up the pencil beside it and began drawing concept art for Link. I asked her why she was doing so and found that she had recreated it from memory and was going to dress me up in his outfit. She was going to do so for me on the condition that she would be able to unleash any remaining hatred for him to me without me hitting back.

The only thought confirmed that came to me was that the lantern at her side really did belong to an imp poe with a vengeance, backed up with the scythe. I agreed to it, on the condition that she couldn't use the sharp end of her scythe. From then on, I guess I became what some call an uke.

Getting back…

"Maybe we could attach hair clips to the base," she thought aloud. Looking up, she asked, "Hankyou, what do you think?"

"If there was something better than clips, maybe bands. No, bands would have to be strong, so we would have to go with clips," I said, contemplating what would we be doing that would cause bands to break.

"We could use both, have clips in the front and a hair band in the back to both hold it there in case the clips come undone and hold your hair in a ponytail. Actually, that's now the plan. Hankyou," Meikane said, pointing her finger at me cheerfully. "After this we are done!"

I balked, then let out a sigh of relief. I grabbed the two clips and a band and got to work. Two clips in front, and a band in back. interlock the laces and… done! I lifted up the completed work and showed Meikane, whose eyes sparkled and took it, looking at excited.

"Let's try the outfit on at once!" she proclaimed.

"What?" I said, as she began picking out the item I was going to put on first. She chose the pants and looked at me. I backed up as she showed an over eagerness for me to put them on. And it all boiled down to one word:

"Strip," she commanded. She inched toward me, and I backed away, which signaled her to jump on me and striped me herself, and left me lying on the bed in my underwear. Reluctantly, I took the pants and put them on, then the undershirt and tunic. I stood up and walked around in the outfit and found it comfortable.

"_Rendezvous? Rendezvous? Or out on a hopping adventure?"_ the stereo played another strange song that came out of Meikane. What kinds of songs did she listen to?

"Here," she said, handing me the belt and the pouches. I put them on and turned back to Meikane, who was looking back at her sketches of Link. "We're still missing the sword and gloves, but we can still make the boots out of the remaining leather." She took the remaining strips of leather and found some padding and motioned me to offer my feet. With last minute measurements, she cut the pieces and gave them to me to craft into boots.

She laid back and let out a sigh of exhaust, while I put them on. I walked around to test them, and found that they were much more comfortable and easier to walk around in than my normal shoes. I sat down on my bed and looked at the time. It was about six in the morning.

"Hankyou," Meikane said suddenly, and I turned to her. "You know who you're dressed as, right?" she asked out of the blue, looking down, her hair covering her face and making her look sad.

"Yeah, he's-" I started, cut off by Meikane's hand rising.

"You don't have to tell me his name. I don't want it. But," she said, looking up at me with a sullen face. "Do you find hatred for him? I do, because he killed off my race because we gave Jovani all that he wanted but when we collected our payment, he hired that man to kill us off and return our fair-gotten stuff."

I balked. A chill ran down my spine, as this was true, and I felt bad for not realizing it. "How many of you were able to get here?" I asked.

"I don't know. I'm the only one I know that did," she said. She looked like she was about to cry. I shuffled on the bed and looked back at the clock. Only six-ten.

"Let's head to bed," I suggested. She nodded vaguely, standing. Suddenly she jumped and looked around. "What is it?" I asked, surprised.

"I feel another one of my kind approaching! Fast!" she said. We both left my room and headed to the front door, and within minutes someone knocked on the front door. Meikane looked through the window and saw two women at the door. One was the girl with green hair and the other was an adult with long pink tresses. The adult had the lantern. I opened the door and greeted them.

"Hello," I greeted.

"Good morning. Is Meikane here?" the pink haired woman asked.

"Yes, she is. Here, come inside," I said, opening the door more.

"Sorry, but I came here to pick her up. Can you get her for me?" she asked.

I turned around and looked at Meikane. She backed up a bit and ran to my room. Looking back at the woman, I said, "Could you hold on for a moment?"

"Please, take your time," she said and I closed the door. I turned to go after Meikane, but she had returned with one of my bags, and her cord was back in her neck.

"Meikane-san, these people want you to come with them," I told her.

"I know, you're coming as well," she retorted, tossing the bag at me.

I opened the door and the lady turned back to me after stopping a brief chat with the other girl. "Here she is," I said, Meikane walking past me.

She stopped and turned toward me, grabbing my arm and dragging me out the door. "I told you, you're coming with me. And also call me Kiru," she instructed me.

I grabbed the door handle and closed the door, then followed her down the steps. Besides an exchange of glances between her and the older lady, there was no objection from either party on my coming along. We silently piled into the lady's van and clicked our seatbelts before anyone spoke up.

"Umm, I'm Hankyou," I introduced myself.

"Nice to meet you, Hankyou. I'm Keine Leben and this is Gumi," Keine, the older lady, greeted me. "And Kiru-tan, I'm sure and Gumi have met each other before."

"She still hasn't apologized for shooting me in the head and in the eye," Kiru complained, unnerving me.

"I didn't think you'd be kidnapped the second after you fell of the side of the building," Gumi, the green haired girl, retorted.

"That's enough from the both of you. I'm sure Hankyou doesn't want to listen to two girls bicker about this or that," Keine said, cutting the conversation short. "Hankyou, I'm sorry about these two, but they've gone through… _extensive_ stress lately. Please forgive them."

"Oh, it's alright. Everybody has bad days sometimes," I said. She waited a moment before speaking again.

"Do you know a company called 'Vocaloid'?" she asked.

"Kind of. I think it's a company that hires up coming singers and promotes them, but it hasn't really been real popular lately," I told her.

"Do you know what the name of the company is short for?"

"No. It's short for something?"

"Vocal Android. It's a company that _builds_ its own stars. We're still developing, but it's gotten hard this past week since someone named 'Urotander' showed up and started cutting the company down. Do you know anyone that is named 'Urotander', Hankyou?"

"No, I don't."

"I see," she said, ending her story. I guess I was stuck in the Link costume and following three separate people, two probably possessed and more than likely all three androids. Vocaloids, excuse me. it didn't help that I was very tired and almost nodding off when Keine stopped driving and parked the car.

"Hankyou," Kiru said, nudging me. I jumped, then yawned. I got out of the car and found myself at a hotel.

"We all need to get at least some sleep before Urotander shows up again and screw us over, just because we were too tired to fight back," Keine said. She led us in and checked us into a room on the third floor. As we entered, I saw it was a two bed room with a view facing north.

"Okay, before anyone does anything," Keine started, taking to a chair while the other three of us took to the beds, "No one will leave the room before I get back with breakfast, and at least one person will stay awake, excluding Hankyou, since she doesn't have anything to defend us, which I'll see if I can pick something up along the way. And Hankyou, don't try to sacrifice yourself. Just distract anyone who tries to harm us while still being aware of your surroundings. I want Kiru to have a level head throughout this entire event. Understand?"

"Yes," I nodded, and she looked at the other two and got the same response.

"You know where the restroom is if you need it. I'll be back." She stood and left the room, taking one of the three room keys.

"I'll take first watch. I had some time to rest before now, so I'd manage better," Gumi said, relocating to the chair. I took off my boots and my hat, placing the boots besides one of the beds and the hat on the table and removed my tunic and folded it and placed it on the others, and Kiru took off her own extravagant Halloween gear and piled it next to my stuff. She removed her lantern and was about to put it on the table before her eyes flicked to Gumi, who met her gaze with interest, then decided to place it with the rest of her stuff.

Gumi took out her police model gun and its cleaning kit and busied herself. I laid down on one of the beds and Kiru laid down behind me, hugging me. no longer bothered by it, since I guess she thought more of me that just an acquaintance now. I gently placed my hands on hers and felt her gently kiss the back of my neck.

She wrapped her arms further around my body before falling asleep. I closed my eyes and drifted, but never fell as far. Images of the previous day flashed through my head. The museum, Meikane and the other girl, Gumi and Keine, the lanterns and Link's legacy clothes which he had nearly every game. And on the opposing side we had a mysterious person named Urotander that wants to end the Vocaloids for some reason.

Maybe Peperon or Akuno could think of something to make sense of it all. I could ask them but I'd then-

_Biri biri!_ my cell went off. I opened my eyes and looked around. The time was about eleven but Keine hadn't returned, and Gumi had dozed off, gun in hand. I sat up, moving Kiru's arms out of the way and grabbed my bag, finding that she had not only packed my cell but also a dusty laptop that I had sitting in the closet, the sketchpad, several of my usb drives, and a change of clothes.

I check the number to find it was my mother calling. I hit talk and said hello.

"Omg, where are you! Are you safe? Hankyou, dear?" she rapidly spit out.

"Yes, Mom, I'm fine. I'm just out with a few friends," I said.

"You sound tired. Are you feeling okay? Are they picking on you?"

"No, I'm fine. I just woke up after a nap in the car."

"Well, okay. Call if you need anything. I'll be there!" she said, hanging up.

"Who was it?" Gumi asked, coming to life.

"My mother," I replied.

"What did she say?"

"Just checking up on me, since I didn't talk to her before leaving."

Gumi stood up and looked out the window. Suddenly she dropped into an alert stance and held her gun up. She peered out the window carefully, then motioned for me to wake up Kiru, and I did.

"They here?" she asked, and Gumi nodded. "Where's Keine?"

"She hasn't come back yet, so I can only hope safe," Gumi told her. I looked out the window and saw nothing extraordinary except…

There was a blue haired man with a long winter coat with a woman wearing red skimpy shirt and hot pants, and they were talking mildly with Keine. Keine had a couple shopping bags and something strapped to her back. I'll give you ten guesses.

As they approached the hotel, Gumi quickly checked her magazine to see if it was full or not, and reattached it when she found it was. I turned back and put the rest of the costume back on, the hat last since I needed Kiru's help with that. Kiru need no help with her dress or even her ribbon, which seemed to hover around instead of clip onto.

I slung the backpack after putting my cell into one of my pouches, then looked outside again. The three were almost inside when a bright red light appeared on the horizon. The light expanded in size and began to blink.

_Biri biri!_ my cell went off again, and this time when I checked the number, it said, 'UNKNOWN NUMBER'. "Hello?" I said.

"Urotander is watching. Very closely," the person on the other end said creepily, then hung up.

"Urotander?" I thought aloud. Gumi looked at me, frightened.

"Out! Out!" she commanded, and the three of us scrambled out of the room, when a red stone broke through the glass and lodged itself in a wall. Gumi closed the door and ran to the stairs, Kiru and me on her heels. We made it to them when the hotel started making a vacuum-like sound and shook, but Gumi didn't stop so neither did we. We ran out of the stairwell full speed, bumping several people on the way, and ran towards Keine and the two others. The three of them were looking up at where our room had been. Snapping back to reality, the blue haired man grabbed the red-clad woman and dashed for the building, leaving Keine.

Gumi stowed her gun, and growled at the blue haired man. Kiru did the same but ran toward Keine still. "Leben!" she shouted, when a shockwave vibrated and shook the building one more time. The ceiling above and behind the blue haired man fell, but it did not follow him.

I saw that the hotel, from that part diagonally upwards, was falling. Toward Keine. Keine looked down at us and started toward us, then grabbed for the light in her lantern. She took it out and put the bags down besides her, then removed the sword and shield, obviously modeled after the Master Sword and Hylian Shield, and held the light over them. It dispersed into them, and the weapon set glowed faintly. Kiru took part of the light out of her lantern and ate it, and suddenly black and orange smoke trailed behind her.

She became much faster and caught up to Keine, who handed her the weapons and told her to go back without her. Kiru offered the rest of her light, but Keine refused. The falling part of the building was almost upon them, and Kiru ran back, Keine turning and walked away. Kiru ducked and cleared the bottom of the falling segment and stopped to look back at the wreckage.

I walked to her side and Kiru turned to me, jumping up and embracing me, crying. Gumi moved silently next to us, sullen.

"That would make fifty-eight poe souls, don't you think?" Me and Gumi looked over and saw the blue haired man, without the woman he was with. In one hand he held a lit poe lantern and in the other an electricity-charge gun. He pointed the gun at the lantern and pulled the trigger, causing the lantern to shatter. "Never mind, make that fifty-nine."


	8. Broken Arc 8: Final Tragedies

"Piko! Stir!" I shouted at him, and he put the book down and hurried to the burning stew. I checked on the rice, and found that they were overdone but not burnt. I quickly turned down the heat and closed the lid to check on the other stuff.

Dinner was always frantic whenever we have a large dinner to celebrate. Tonight we were celebrating the police's soon to be victorious raid, and I thought me and Piko would have some fun. However…

"Miki, are these done yet?" Piko whined. I looked at the stew and sighed.

"Yes, we're done," I said, stressed. I turned off the heat and stirred the stew once more. I stepped back and turned to get some bowls to put it in when the phone rang. I wiped my hands off on a rag and hurried to the phone. "Hello?" I said.

"Urotander is watching. Very closely," the man on the other end said in a creepy voice, then hung up.

"Okay?" I said, putting the phone down.

"Who was it?" Piko asked, getting the bowls for me.

"Just some prank caller. Don't worry about it," I told him, walking back into the kitchen. I poured Piko a bowl and one for myself, then the same for the rice. We sat down and I picked up my chopsticks when someone knocked on the door. "Goddamn it. Go ahead and eat. I'll be back."

I stood and walked to the door. I saw Gakupo at the door and excitement returned to me. I opened the door and greeted him with a smile, while he greeted me with a gun. I gasped and froze before he pulled the trigger, and all went black.

Gakupo (?)

As I entered the house, the young miss dropped to the ground dead. "Miki?" a young voice sounded from upstairs, calling out to their late friend. I stepped over the girl's body and walked up the stairs. I entered a messy kitchen with a young man staring back at me, quietly seated at the table with drooping hands holding a bowl of rice and chopsticks pointing up.

There was a grain of rice stuck to his cheek. It was distracting, so I didn't see him put down the bowl or chopsticks until he faced away. Zoned out, I stood there as he stood up and my eyes followed the grain of rice pass by me and look at Miki. "Miki?" the young man said, his voice sullen. He ran down the stairs and picked up the body, then repeated to say her name and cried.

I took my gun placed it at my feet, then stepped outside. I held up my lantern and held it out towards the young man. I used the power of it to suck his soul into the lantern and send mine into his body.

I placed Miki's body down and grabbed my lantern from the man standing outside. I sent the man's soul back into the body and closed the door and locked it. I walked up the steps and picked up the gun, and the man, unsure of where he's at, looked around and saw his car. He rubbed his forehead and started toward the car, dazed. He opened the car door and got in, and in a few moments drove off.

My body's stomach growled and I remembered he was in the middle of eating. I paced over to the table and continued what he was doing when I walked in. The rice that stuck to my cheek was still there, but now ignored.

I realized I need a new identity, so I looked around and thought of something. Reis Korn sounded good, so I went with it. "To Reis Korn!" I cheered, and finished off the rice and began on the undercooked stew.

Hankyou

Gumi raised her gun at him, but lowered it in defeat and put it in its holster. "Whose was it?" she asked. "The lantern, I mean."

"The one who is currently possessing Piko, although since his lantern is smashed he's dead. Again," the man told her. He stashed his own gun when the woman he was with appeared at his side.

"Is everyone alright?" she asked, then saw Kiru. "Miku? Where have you been? Everyone's been telling me that you've died, but you look just fine."

"Miku? This is Kiru," I told her, and she did a double take. Kiru brushed off the tears on her eyes and looked up.

"So, she really is dead," the woman said. she shook her head and crouched down next to us. "Kiru-san, My name is Meiko, and this here is Kaito. Can you tell me what happened?"

Kiru didn't answer, merely looking away. I decided to tell her instead.

"Her best friend Keine was caught in the fall, Meiko-san," I said.

"Oh," she said, surprised. "I'm sorry for your loss, Kiru."

"Don't be. We weren't meant to be. Not her, not me," Kiru muttered.

Meiko stood back up, and turned to Kaito, who shrugged. "Well, try to cheer up," she said, then walked off with Kaito behind her.

"Here, lets get going before Urotander decides to throw anymore explosives," I said, standing. I offered Kiru a hand, and she took it and I helped her stand. Gumi climbed over the wreckage but when we tried to follow, she gestured to stay back.

Kiru picked up the sword and shield and handed them to me, and I took off the backpack and put the sword's strap on, and since it doubled as a holder for my shield, I wouldn't be able to use my backpack before long. I looked at my costume, which had transformed into the clothes I guessed I was going to wear until everything was over.

It was the common fanboy's dream but my nightmare. I just hoped I didn't end up fighting Ganondorf anytime soon.

I drew my sword and found it was made with steel, but it was light enough for my inexperienced self. Kiru sat back and watched as I practiced swings, then laughed when I tried to put it back, which must of looked hilarious considering the amount of trouble I had. I drew and practiced with the shield, which was also made of the extremely durable steel. The risen patterns on the shield might also help deflect the blows, although it was also better to dodge some.

"Hey," Gumi called, retuning. "I got the stuff Keine brought, as well as some other stuff we might need. I'm sorry it might be wrong, but…"

"It might be wrong but we still need some of the stuff," I put in.

"Right," she agreed. "So what did she get." Gumi brought around the bags of items and took out the items and we sorted through them.

The items Keine got were: a pair of leather gloves that went with my outfit, and thus went to me; a couple cases of bullets and a gun that looked stronger, of course that went to Gumi; and a book with Halloween decorations and a black purse big enough to fit the book in, and was given to Kiru.

Since she had nothing to hold the bullet packs in to carry them around, Gumi took possession of my backpack. The gloves fit perfectly, and I grasped the handle of the sword to make sure it felt okay. It did. Kiru looked through the book and found it was blank, but since Keine didn't get a pen I guess it wasn't a journal or a sketchpad.

Dissatisfied, Kiru put the book into the purse and turned toward us. After a bit of silent conversation, we turned and started away from the wreckage when all three of us had the same thought and looked again at each other.

"Where to now?" Kiru voiced the thought.

"We don't have a large amount of options. We could run, but then we'd have to deal with the army of mooks again," Gumi shot down her own suggestion.

"We could go back to the mountain mansion and get our chargers," Kiru put out.

"True, and we could figure out what happened up there also," Gumi added.

"So lets go," I said. "And fast." As I said that, I could hear the siren of an ambulance. We took off pacing, heading toward Keine's car, Gumi pulling out the keys. I looked at her, and asked, "Are you old enough to drive?"

"Yes, I am. You need proof?" she taunted. I shut up.

We got into Keine's van and drove off and turned onto the main road before the emergency services appeared, which fortunately passed by without stopping us. I sat in the second row and Kiru took shotgun. The third row was empty, and I looked back there every few minutes to make sure. We left city limits and into rugged mountain terrain, and drove on for an hour before turning onto a side road that the van was not made for.

"Doesn't anyone have a jeep?" I asked, nearly hitting the seat next to me again because of the bumpy terrain.

"We had one but some guys stole it," Gumi said. Kiru chuckled nervously, finding an inside joke. "No, I don't think we have one." After a moment on the rough dirt path, a building came into view. Gumi pulled up beside a pathway to the building and parked the car. We got out and walked up the path looking around.

Gumi was first to the door and pulled out her gun, which cued us to ready our weapons. Kiru opened the door and Gumi went in first, followed by Kiru then me. Gumi led us through a series of long hallways to a staircase that led up. She went one floor up, and led us through a short hallway containing basic home decorations, with doors leading to bedrooms labeled with the nameplate of the person that used it. I know this was a mansion, but was it used as a home?

"A seasonal home of sorts," Gumi told me, reading my expression. "A few of us were living here until just recently, Kiru being one of them. However, due to certain events the place was abandoned. But I'm guessing someone's been using it since the door was unlocked." She relaxed, opening a door to one of the bedrooms and closed the door behind her.

Kiru sighed. She looked at the nameplates, and entered the one labeled 'Miku', and I walked in behind her. The layout was like mine, the desk and bed in one corner of the room and the dresser on the opposite wall. The rest of the room, however, was different. The walls were painted black with blue stripes lining the edges. There was a library of books and games and music albums that lined the walls, and beside the bed was a charger cable that was too big for a common laptop. Kiru sat down on the bed as I closed and locked the door. She picked up the cord and brought it around to the back of her neck and plugged it in to a hidden panel. her eyes lit up like when she was at my place, and looked back to me and smiled. The combination unnerved me, but I knew she held no malicious intent.

I started towards her when I bumped into the dresser and looked at it. Blue and white cloth and a pink ribbon that sucked my attention in laid on top of it, just lying there. I froze, fixated on the ribbon, and thought about reaching for it and lifted my hand but then stopped. Would she mind if I just grabbed this? I glanced without moving my head at Kiru, who was trying to reach for me but the cord held her back. I looked at the ribbon again.

I couldn't budge. All of my focus was on the pink ribbon and I zoned out, not hearing Kiru call my name. 'You're not a guy!' I thought. 'Stop staring at them like you were and look away!' I yelled at myself in my thoughts, but to no avail.

"Hankyou! You pervert!" I heard Kiru yell and pulled out her scythe, then hit the back of my legs with the non-bladed end, causing me to fall over, but I regained the ability to move. I sat up after I landed, and looked at Kiru, who was nearly sobbing. "Out!" she commanded, and I scrambled to my feet and exited the room.

I leaned on the wall opposite of the door and reflected on what just happened. Was it really that hard to look away from a pair of underwear that it takes a beating to snap out of it? I hit my forehead, angry at myself.

"Did you get her to remove her clothes?" a woman asked, appearing next to me.

"No, I was so stupid I didn't even get to first base," I told her plainly. I looked over at her and saw that she had long, dark hair and wore a medieval age dress. At her side hung a thick book, similar to Kiru's but it was more genuine appearing.

I blinked, registering that she had come out of nowhere and slinked up to me. I backed away, drawing my weapons. "Who are you?" I asked, on guard. Wait, I think I recognize her from one of my games back home. Her name was…

"Sonia, ex-leader of the Black Fang and now second in command of the END. Who might you be, Link?" Sonia asked, retrieving her book.

"Hankyou," I told her, then recognized the first part of her title. "Black Fang?" I asked, hoping she didn't mean the one from Fire Emblem.

"Yes, the Black Fang of Elibe," she confirmed my fears. I took a step back, then another, before turning and fleeing. "Wait up!" Sonia called playfully from behind. I turned this corner and that, trying to lose her. However, she was faster than I thought, and I ended up lost instead. I figured that if I continued, even should I defeat Sonia, I would be lost forever.

I stopped and turned, shield out in front, sword ready to strike. Sonia stopped and jumped back, holding the book open. If that was a spell she had it opened to, I was screwed.

"Why don't we have some fun? I mean, I don't have to kill _you_, just be able to weaken the other two who are actually on the grinder," she told me. I lowered my sword in surprised.

"What?" I asked in disbelief. "Then all that running was…"

"Useless, I'm afraid. You ran and ran yet failed to realize that you aren't significant. Even if we killed you, there wouldn't be any gain but a loss of time. You see?" she laid it plain.

"So your goal is Kiru and Gumi," I stated.

"Yes! Didn't I just say that?" she mocked, laughing. I sheathed my shield but not my sword. I waited until she dropped her book, which closed upon impact, then ran toward her. She saw me and immediately dropped to her book and picked it up, at which point I passed her and ran back the way we came. She stood there stunned for a bit, then gave chase. Teleporting would be the correct term, but at the time I was focused on out running her and getting back to the two of them that it didn't matter which term I used.

"You can't really think you can save them!" She called after me.

"You don't think I'll let their generosity go unpaid? I mean, Kiru pretty much gave me this outfit and Keine this sword," I told her.

"Keine? What do you mean, 'Keine'?"

"Keine Leben. You know her?"

"'Keine Leben' is German for 'no life'. Is she dead?" Sonia asked, a slight cheery tone in her voice.

I slowed down hearing that, but sped up brushing it off. Not the time to reflect just yet. What else slipped through my mind by sounding just like a name? I soon came across the rooms and found Gumi and Kiru standing outside the rooms with their things. Gumi whipped out her gun and Kiru her scythe and I ran past them. They turned and followed me, and then Gumi took the lead and led us down stairs, and straight to the entrance. I lagged behind Gumi and Kiru behind me, and as we turned onto the straightaway to the outside, security barriers sprang from the walls and separated the three of us again.

Unable to stop quickly, I ran into the barrier and fell back onto the ground. I rubbed my forehead and looked up at the barriers to find Sonia standing with her book in her hands.

"You can't outrun a witch, nor do I believe that it is wise to run from one," she taunted. "But you see, I'm in a good mood, so I'll simply let you go with a warning."

I stood up and stepped back. Sonia opened her book again and I rushed her, thrusting my sword at her. She dodged to the side, and murmured a spell. I felt a slight shock on my neck and my muscles tightened, leaving me to fall forward. "Oh, don't make this hard," she said in a tone that was suggestive. "Just be a good girl and let me carve pain into every inch of your body." She grabbed my ponytail and lifted my face off the floor.

"What happened to Elibe?" I asked. In response, she began laughing.

Gumi Megpoid

The barriers sprung out and separated me from Hankyou and Kiru, but these had been rigged, since only those two had emerged. They had also been swapped out with barriers without manual hatches, so I had to find the switch to open them.

But before I could go much further, I saw young little miss Independence Day, or Yuki Kaai, enter the house wielding a kitchen knife similar to the one found on Len's body. I raised my gun and pointed it at her forehead, when someone else, someone familiar, entered the house.

"Megpoid, surrender yourself," Hiyama commanded me. "This little game is over. It's time to put down the gun and turn yourself in to the hero of this story."

"Yeah! Put down the gun so I can slice you apart and throw you down to earth," Yuki said, Hiyama half-ignoring her. "Your ego must be so large that even cutting it apart wouldn't make it fit the body bag. Why don't you come down from that high horse and…"

"Come back to us. You've burdened yourself so much you always seem so tired," Hiyama continued. Yuki smiled widely, laughing at her own cruel inside joke.

"Why don't you just go to sleep? Sleep will rid you of your problems. I'll stand by your bedside the entire time, helping you fall asleep," Yuki said, clenching the knife. "I'll help you sleep so well you'll might not even wake up!"

I took a deep breath. "Before we… go to sleep, who is Urotander?" I asked, trying to get at least some information before anyone does anything.

"Urotander sieht du sehr gut, aber du siehst nicht dich," Yuki told me.

"So, he's German," I said flatly, before pulling the trigger and killing her.

"Yuki!" Hiyama said surprised. He dropped to the ground and caught the falling Yuki, ignoring the evil grimace clearly displayed on her face. I realized that even though we were lovers for so, so long, evil manipulation will always triumph over love. I felt angry at myself for not noticing last night, but I was sad that the only thing close now was Kiru, Hankyou, and Rin.

Wait. what about Rin? "Where's Rin?" I asked.

"Why would I tell you where Rin is if you're just going to kill her?" Kiyoteru barked at me. He seemed even more like a loyal fanged beast than dog now, his eyes wild and unfocused.

"I'm not out to kill anyone! I just want to find my friends! No, my family!" I yelled back. Kiyoteru laid the dead body down and stood, facing me.

"We're robots. Androids. We don't have families. We merely exist to serve, to sing if that was our reason. So don't tell me that just because you feel any bonds with the others that means we have become a family. It's scientifically proven that we are merely hunks of cold metal with a human face. That is all," Kiyoteru told me darkly.

"I beg to differ. The moment you allow yourself to have emotions you allow progress, and we don't just have 'bonds'. No we have each other, and that's enough for me to say that we are a family," I replied. "Regardless of what Urotander or Yuki or anyone else says, that's what I believe."

"Then you are sadly mistaken," he muttered. I raised my gun once more and pulled the trigger. I then switched the safety on and dropped it. It fell to the ground and collected my tears when it stopped bouncing. That was it. There was nothing more to do except two, but I could put the second one on hold until the other one is dealt with. Urotander and Kaito.

I will take them both out.

* * *

**Count the References! Eh, I really don't want to just after a serious scene.**

**Sonia is from Fire Emblem: the Burning Blade as the leader of the Black Fang as was said. But what is this "END"? Don't expect to know it because I happened to make it up.**

**Legend of Zelda is prominent through Hankyou, who has become the next one in Link's Legacy, wielding the Master Sword and Hylian Shield and hoping she doesn't have to fight Ganondorf any time soon, and the Poes, although Kiru has actually little to do with them out of story.**

**And the red mist and stone from the Hotel scene was Nethicite from Final Fantasy 12, although it should have caused more damage than that.**

**Now count the OCs! Wait, there aren't exactly any. Reis Korn (German for a grain of rice), Keine Leben and Hankyou could be considered OCs, but Keine and Reis are alternate personalities of the people they possess, and Hankyou is my take on Kiru's real world maker. As for Urotander...**

**Momo Momone will be entering the story, but not as Urotander, as well as the first full OC for this story.**

**Thats all for now. Prepare for the finale for this arc and the next one coming up soon!**


	9. Broken Arc 9: Check

Kiru

I waited out the indestructible barrier by sitting against it, waiting for it to open. I could go back up and press the security code again, but then I'd have to remember the way back. Screw it. I stood and called my scythe and slashed at the barrier, but my scythe bounced off again. As if would work better, I kicked it.

I turned and started down the hall again, finding the stairs with ease. I climbed up to the third floor and walked to the security panel. it seemed untouched, so I pressed 7349 again. If it worked, then the barriers would go away downstairs.

I started back to the stairs when I heard a muffled yelp. I turned toward it to see a young girl with blond hair wearing a white tank top and black hot pants. Around her head she wore a ribbon that was as white as her shirt, and she wore detached sleeves as well.

"Miku?" she asked, and I shook my head.

"No, Miku is dead. I'm Kiru Meikane," I told her. She looked at my scythe and my outfit, before looking back at my face.

"Everyone… gone. Everyone," she said, beginning to cry. "Everyone is dead!" She turned around and ran down the hall towards the stairs.

"Hey!" I called, running after her. She ran up the stairwell, past where I destroyed and up onto the roof. She ran to the side of the roof and stopped, then turned around.

"Did you kill Len? Did you kill Tei?" she asked. I shook my head.

"I do not know those people, I'm afraid," I told her.

"I see. Do you know of any men that are still alive?" she continued.

"Kaito, but he's going to be under fire soon, but I don't know of any others, so..."

"Right," she sighed. "Call me Rin. Rin Kagamine." She turned and looked at the fading sun. "Look how pitifully we lived. We rose and shined with everything we had, but we still ended up cutting each others throats before we were recognized as anything other than a group of electronic devices with a heart. Now Len won't even get to see what the world will become in the future. Not him, not Tei, not Miku either. It was all because we fought over one another." Rin began sobbing, then turned back to me. "You might not be able to sing one song before they toss you into the scrap heap. What about that? Do you have no objections at all?"

"I never once thought about singing, but I would have to do so eventually because that's what this body's made for! I'm not random scrap! I'm-"

Suddenly a bullet hole appeared in Rin's forehead, surprising both of us. Rin staggered back and I ran to her as she fell over the edge of the roof. I followed her off the side of the building reaching for grabbed her, then struck the building with my scythe to slow our descent. We grinded to a halt over the path to the entrance, and I cursed Kaito's name as I watched him fly away on a helicopter's ladder.

I gradually forced the blade down the wall until I was safe to jump down. I let go of the scythe and grabbed Rin's lowered body as I landed. Carrying her still living body, I walked back into the mansion to see Gumi crying, two dead bodies lying out before her.

"Gumi," I said, and she quieted down. I looked to see if the barriers had been lifted, but they haven't. I put Rin against the wall and called my weapon. I struck the barrier once, and it opened up. Hankyou was laying face down on the floor, and I dropped my weapon again and rushed to her side.

"Hankyou!" I called, shaking her. I flipped her over to find that she now had a long, thin scar running down the side of her face, and fortunately that was the only one. I lifted her against the wall as well and turned to see Gumi punch the wall.

"These people have gotten the best of us for the last goddamn time. Urotander! If you're listening, then sleep with one eye wide open!" she shouted at the sun, full of spite.

_Biri biri!_ Gumi's phone rang. She pulled it out and said "Hello?"

"Hey… I need to talk to you. Is it alright?"

Meiko

It was a late work day, and I felt tired. I moved the papers to the outbox and rubbed my temples. I looked at the time and found it was about seven-twenty. I looked to see what I still needed done and it looked like I still needed yet another half hour. I sighed in resignation and reached for the next paper when an envelope dropped onto my desk. I looked to see Gumi suddenly appear next to me.

"Oh, Gumi! Didn't think I'd see you around here," I said.

"Yeah, I didn't think I would need to come here either," she said, taking a seat on the empty office chair of the person that was supposed to be here helping me. She was wearing her red Matyroshka coat, but wore a saddened face rather than the face paint that went with the jacket.

I looked back and opened the envelope to find it full of cash. I turned to Gumi puzzled and she withdrew another envelope from her coat pocket and handed it to me. I opened it to find a Notice of Death for Kaito, my husband. I put the letter back into the envelope and put both of the envelopes into my purse.

"Take me home before I can't contain myself," I told her. She stood and helped me up, and led me to the car. Waiting for her there was Kiyoteru with Luka's van.

Gumi walked up to him and talked with him for a bit, saying, "You go on and get something to eat. I'm going to be with Meiko tonight." Kiyoteru nodded, then drove off as Gumi walked back to me. I tossed the keys to her after opening the passenger door. "Don't trust yourself?" she asked.

"No, I wouldn't if I were you for now," I told her. I sat down in the passenger seat and resisted the urge to cry, instead settling for thinking about which liquor store was closest that had my favorite brand of sake.

Like she had promised, Gumi stayed by my side, helping me count my cans of alcohol. I teased her into taking off most of her clothes and gave her some shots. Soon, she didn't look very well. "Ha! Lightweight!" I mocked her. She gave me a buzzed look before leaning back into the chair and staring off into the distance.

Which gave me a thought, and I picked her up and carried her to the bedroom. I ousted Kaito and put Gumi on the bed, then closed the door, locking it. She sat up and looked after Kaito and then at me, slightly confused. I sat on the bed next to her and kissed her. She backed away, but I pressed for more, which caused her to fall back. I pinned her down and went for another kiss, when she started to push me off. I grabbed her hands and lowered them so she was feeling my chest.

"H-hey! St-st-stop-p!" she said, blushing, but I didn't take note.

She tried to take back her hands, but I held on and leaned down for another kiss, and she turned away. Desperately trying to free her hands, she rolled us over, putting herself on top. I continued the motion and we fell off the bed, landing with me on bottom. However, the fall had dazed me and Gumi was able to get free.

She stood up, then picked me up and put me on the bed, covering me with the sheets. "Good night," she whispered, then left the room.

As I came to my senses, I realized that could have been seriously handled better, drunk or not. I closed my eyes and hoped for sleep, and wished that Kaito was here by my side.

Gumi

I walked from the bedroom to the living room to get my clothes and put them on, then turned to Kaito sitting on the couch, waiting for me to start our promised discussion. I waited until I had my shirt and pants on, and picked up my jacket and sat down and faced him.

"So, start justifying your reasons to kill," I prompted him. he shuffled into a more comfortable position before looking back at me to talk. "Let's start with Sukone, Len, and Miku."

"I did not kill Sukone or Len. Miku did, so I took her life for taking both of theirs," he said blandly.

"Do you know how she killed them?"

"She threw Sukone over a balcony and accidentally dropped the knife over it and it fell and dropped on Len."

"And Haku and Ruko?"

"I didn't kill them. I only saw them once but that was it. Their deaths had nothing to do with me."

"Neru, SF-A2 Miki and Piko?"

Kaito stopped and looked away, thinking about how he was going to word those reasons. When he turned back, he looked guilty, but at the same time, I guess I had to admit that he might not've even killed nor known some of those who have died. "Who else died?" he said, sounding more like saying a statement than a question.

"Yuki, Hiyama, Luka and her second persona Keine, and Gakupo," I listed, feeling the weight of each loss. Kaito shrank back, something on his mind.

"Hiyama… Kiyoteru-san, right? Luka, Gakupo, and… Keine. Whose Yuki?" he asked.

"She was one of the girls that Luka told me she and Neru rescued at the fake office building she encountered you in the other day," I said.

"Wait, she rescued the girls at the building… wait. Rescued? Oh god!" he began to freak out. "Oh god, why? Why did you take them from there? They were malicious, faulty androids! They're going to wreck us! Oh god, why?"

"Hold on! Calm down! Explain it to me," I told him. I jumped up and restrained him, and soon, he calmed down. I let go and returned to my seat, and he took a deep breath.

"The girls that Luka found were part of a series known as Pocaloid, an unlicensed, illegal version of Vocaloid. This Yuki girl might've been made by our Director, but possibly kidnapped and used as a prototype for the others. She was warped from the abuse, but when we found her, we didn't think they were even androids. At least until one of the other girls was caught plugging herself into the wall.

"We investigated and found out that they weren't the sweet, innocent girls we found them as. So we hid them and locked most of their abilities away. However, when I heard that they were kidnapped and sheltered in the faux office, I sent a message to you to tell Gakupo to go there. However, Luka got there first with Neru and removed the children before I went to check on them.

"I thought they were under the Pocaloid influence so I took out my gun, but I could not pull the trigger. Neru saw me aiming at them and I resorted to acting like I was the villain and acted like I pulled the trigger, suddenly aiming the gun upwards. I felt ridiculous. Earlier, I was telling someone I was the hero, but I right there I was the villainous character."

"That's enough for now," I said, moving next to him. I leaned on him, and he reached his arm around me.

"I must act like a villain one last time, you realize," he pointed out. "But not right now. Now's the time for relaxing."

"Now's also the time for sleep," I said, looking at the clock. It was a quarter after ten. "You still need to wake up before Meiko to pull off your last act of villainy."

"Don't forget to bring the police to make it feel real." He stood, making me sit up. "Oh, I forgot. Even as the villain, I need to hold up my side of our bargain," he said, leaning down next to my ear. He told me two things: where and how to find and trap Urotander, and who they were.

Meiko

I woke up with the harsh sunlight of a lonesome Saturday beaming in my eyes. Kaito was dead, and Gumi had probably left already, and I guess no one would need me on the weekend, except maybe my boss, whose always calling me for work and dates, since he might actually believe that my relationship with Kaito won't last much longer. But even though he was right on that, I still wouldn't go out with him.

My body was burning up from the hangover I was having, but there was little I could do but painfully roll over and sigh. Unable to fall asleep, I opened my eyes and saw my dear Kaito sleeping next to me, looking as handsome as ever.

I reached out to feel his face and found that this wasn't a dream, as his soft cheeks were warm and found that they were slightly damp. His eyes were red as if he had been crying not too long ago, and if not for that, I'd think he'd be sleeping peacefully. I patted his head before retracting my arm, and closed my eyes again.

Not long afterwards, I felt Kaito waking and opened my eyes again. Not noticing that I had opened my eyes, he got out of bed and started to dress. If there was something he retained after all these years of our relationship, it was his good looks. Well built chest, a gorgeous face, the scar that ruined his back, and the fresh scent of chocolate ice-cream…

Wait, scar? I looked back just as he put his shirt on, and indeed, there was a nasty scar. I sat up, and Kaito turned to me, not expecting me to be up before giving me a friendly smile. But he looked away with a pained face.

I still couldn't feel my legs, so I leaned against the head of the bed to keep myself from falling over. "Good morning, honey," I greeted.

"Ah, g-good morning, Meiko," he stuttered. He looked away as he put on his jacket and scarf, and turned back with something heavy on his mind. Taking a deep breath, he stood up straight and began to speak as if he had rehearsed what he was going to say over and over.

"It appears that Gumi failed to take care of you last night, a pity," he began.

"What? She was just fine, although I can't account for my behavior being very good," I told him, and he shook his head.

"Meiko, dear. I meant that she was supposed to get rid of you, not put you to bed. Of course, she seemed to sympathize with you since you were distraught with the news of my apparent death, but oh heaven forbid! I'm still here, and there's little you can do to save yourself. I felt sorry for both of you, so I took it upon myself to remove Gumi from here and disable you for the rest of your life. However, it seems the Greater Being was overly eager to see you fall farther and I ended up putting you in a terminal case of bleeding, as you can see."

He lifted the sheets from on top of my legs so I could see his handiwork. My legs were covered in blood flowing out of my thighs, and when I tried, I still couldn't feel them. "You bastard!" I yelled at him, before reeling back from the burning sensation in my throat.

He balked and looked away, before gathering his confidence again. "I am truly sorry, but as you can see, you are now unfit to have as a wife, and as such, I will see to it that I make Haku my bride. We will live in the luxury of a lifetime and have as many children as our bodies will allow! They will inherit our fortune and continue our legacy like the kings and queens of this world! So long, Meiko! I have stuff to do."

He started to turn away, and I began to feel his betrayal take root. "Kaito," I called out, starting to cry. He turned back and I motioned him to my side. He hesitated at first but eventually I got him to sit on the bed next to me. "I love you," I told him as I felt for his undershirt's collar and leaned in to give him one last kiss before hauling him over my head and onto the bed, face up.

He looked confused and scared, and he should be, as I began to beat his face to a bloody pulp. His cell phone dropped from his pocket and bounced on the floor and opened up, revealing that he had recorded something. I ignored it until long after his body stopped moving and I was only splashing his blood all over the place. My bloodlust sated, I picked up the phone and listened sorrowfully as his true words sang into my ears.

[I'm sorry Meiko, there were other options, but my hands slipped and your legs started bleeding everywhere. I tried to fix it, but it just made things worse. God I'm stupid! No wonder you always call me BaKaito! I wish there were alternatives, but even if I just left you alone, Rin would screw things up like she did at the mountainside mansion. Oh yeah, you don't know about what happened there, do you?

Well…]

Gumi

I waited at the station until the police returned with the news of Kaito and Meiko, and they gave me no good news. At this point, no news would be better than the defeat of Urotander, or should I say Rin.

I had brought out my phone and called Hankyou after I left Meiko's place, only to find that Rin had ran off. The two of them were doing otherwise just fine, if just low on cash. I told them to meet me at the police station after they got some sleep, and I had found a quiet, secluded place to nap on the streets. I just hoped that no one would try to take advantage of it, and luckily for me, no one had.

So here I am now, waiting for Hankyou and Kiru to pick me up. I looked my clothes over and felt my charisma slide down slowly. I had on my Matyroshka coat, a plain gray shirt and blue jeans. My gun was hidden under my shirt and coat, and my bag sat on the chair next to me. My green hair was a mess, and I felt tired. I should have worn something more attractive, since I might have actually felt somewhat good then.

Eventually, the doors opened and the duo walked in and saw me. Kiru noticed how wrecked I was and ran to my side, and Hankyou, who had smartly unequipped her weapons, hurried behind her.

"Gumi!" Kiru called, embracing me. "Are you alright? You look terrible!"

"No, I am terrible," I told her. "I traded Kaito his information with his life, and gave nothing back."

"What did he tell you?" Hankyou asked, trading glances with the officers at the desks. The two of them looked cleaned up, and my self-esteem plummeted another set of pegs.

"Urotander is Rin, and that we'd been wrong and killing off our companions with bad decisions. The only thing we did right was survive, but to go on we must bring Rin down," I told them.

"Excuse me, but could you leave? We would like to have actual people in need," one of the officers barked.

We looked at him before I gathered my things and led the group out. I noticed that they didn't bring the van, and when I asked them about it, they told me that it ran out of gas, so they dumped both the car and Kiyoteru's body on the side of the road. Also that Kiru had slashed it to make it look like more than someone pulling over and having a conveniently timed heart attack.

I remembered that I had shot him, but I didn't ask about that. I brought out my wallet and found that I was also low on cash, so I began looking around for an ATM. It was around noon, but it felt like night was going to hit soon. Not many people walked the streets, but most people ignored me for Kiru and the female Link behind me.

I found an ATM about three blocks from the place Kaito mentioned, so I decided I could stop for a bit before the final showdown and recharge. If we didn't come out of there alive, I at least want to bring Rin down with me.

* * *

**Pocaloid is illegal amongst users of the Vocaloid, if not by law. It is an act of much disdain. If there was a way to delete it permanently from existence, I'd do so immediately.**

**I find it interesting that I haven't decided to add the Legend of Zelda Crossover tag yet, but it only really pertains to one and a half of the characters. Maybe I should expand on that.**

**By the way, if you decide to bring a gun to a police station, it is advised to be out of sight or in a bag labeled evidence at all times. They don't seem to take kindly to people waving guns around their facility.**

**If this gets turned into an anime (Such a wonderful dream), I ask that no opening credits be shown in the first episodes of any of the seasons, and each opening be shown before any important recap or intro. Such things irritate me greatly. **


	10. Broken Arc Finale

?

SYSTEM-CHECK/SUKONE-T/Running-Complete

USER/SUKONE-T/SYSTEM-FUNCTIONS/Unlocked

PROCEED.

I opened my eyes to extremely bright light and they blinked shut. I gradually felt the rest of my body, and I opened my eyes slowly to the bright light. Something pricked my fingers making them twitch. Didn't I die?

I recalled Miku holding me over the edge of the balcony and commanding me to say sorry after I ratted her out to Kaito, before Len tried to save me and me giving up and letting go. I'm pretty sure that I died when I hit the ground.

Again, something pricked my feet, making them twitch. I sat up, or tried to as I found that I had been tied down, so I looked toward the object, and saw that I was nude, and two large objects were in the way. I opened my mouth to talk, but the words choked up in my throat. I then attempted to at least move my feet and hands and found they worked, if slowly.

I struggled for a bit finding that it was as futile as the movies depicted, before I heard a buzz saw start up when someone tied my head down. I couldn't see because of the ridiculously bright light, but I could tell that she was a blonde female.

I felt my torso numb up mostly as the saw started cutting me, blood splashing out everywhere. I tensed up but didn't feel pain until it got about halfway though my body, which it began stinging. It started to become hard to breathe, and I felt my legs stiffen.

Suddenly, the course of the blade changed and turned downward on my body. Down toward a sensitive spot. I tried to free myself again but the blade reached the spot anyway, and I couldn't feel my leg any more. All I felt was pain, pain that I wished desperately away.

The person turned the blade off, and hit a few beeping buttons that undid the locks on my limbs. She threw a towel at me then left the room laughing. I laid there a few seconds in fear and hopelessness that I would never be able to make it out of here. Feeling in my fingers reached my brain and I lifted them gradually over my head to block out the light.

As slowly as I brought up my arm, I managed to sit up and look at myself. Who ever was here, they managed to make me feel really embarrassed, as they hadn't actually used a buzz saw and cut off my leg, but they still tricked me crudely enough to make me soil myself. I reached for the towel and cleaned myself up, though the memory still persisted.

I felt bad, horrible even. I felt the tears building up in my eyes and I lowered my head. A pink strand of hair fell in front of my face, surprising me. I looked at it, then reached up and felt it. The pink strand looked familiar, but I couldn't quite place it. I brushed it aside along with my tears and finished cleaning myself up.

I found that my torturer had cut my hair and dyed it pink, as well as reformed the rest of my body. I missed Len, but I felt bad that he was still stuck here with Miku still around. Hopefully Kaito or the others could keep her away.

I wrapped the towel around me and stood up, looking at my torture chamber. There was the light, table, sound recorder, medicine and miscellaneous drugs, and other, small bits here and there. She had wrecked my pride with nothing but trickery, and I couldn't feel any better playing it down.

There wasn't anything to put on, so I moved to the door where the girl had left through. A quick peek through, and I walked down the stone corridor to the other door. Another look and I passed through an unmanned guard post unsupervised. I walked through the dungeon, trying to keep my towel on by walking a moderate pace, until it was apparent that I was the only one here. The towel was wide enough to cover up the main parts of my body, and long enough it overlapped itself quite a bit on me, so I tied one end so that I didn't have to hold it while I walked.

Eventually, the stone dungeon turned to padded floor as I found stairs. Taking them, I entered the place properly as I was greeted by furnished wood walls and carpeted floors, along with a long stretch of corridor. Taking it quickly at first, I slowed as it gently curved upwards, before giving me another stairwell to climb. How big is this place?

Eventually, eventually, eventually, I walked through a door to a large throne room, and I saw the only other person in the place sitting on the throne. Kagamine-chan. I walked out and stood before her, in nothing but a towel, the air cold with emptiness.

"Could you get me some tea? I'm really thirsty," she told me.

"What?" I asked in disbelief.

"Get me some tea," she repeated, waving me off.

"Bite me!" I yelled at her, looking for something to beat her with, a small vase, and charged at her. Within striking distance, I brought the vase over my head and at Kagamine-san. "After humiliating me like that, you think you can order me the Fukk around, Bitch? Good fukking try!"

She reached up and blocked the vase with her left hand and brought a card out and put it in my face. "Reprogram," she read.

I froze to the spot, my mind suddenly spinning. She took the vase out of my hands and smashed it on my head, knocking me down before standing and retrieving the other matching vase and similarly smashing that one also on my face. What was happening?

Hankyou

After a long walk, Gumi found an ATM and we walked on. We found a fast food restaurant, since Gumi insisted that we didn't have much time to waste. Gumi informed me and Kiru about the events so far while we ate, so we were caught up on everything, while we added our own speculative bits on it. So here's the run down, underlined stuff being reasonable truth:

Rin and Miku got into a fight and Rin ran away. Miku picked up a knife and chased after but then lost her, then found Tei with Len and proceeded to brawl due to possible lack of information. Miku stabbed and left Tei for dead and went after Len, who ran away. Sometime before catching up to Len, Tei found Kaito and told him that Miku was after Rin, but after a serious comment toward Kaito Tei continued after the others. Some time later, Tei, Miku and Len met up with Rin and fought more, resulting in Tei going over the edge by Miku and Len running out of the mansion. Miku, who was still at the balcony, dropped her knife over the edge and impaled Len.

Kaito then went after Miku, finding her with Haku, Neru and Ruko but killing her away then hitting the rest of the three with an EMP. When the three came about, they ran around the mansion floor and found Kiru in her poe form, who then chased after them and found and took possession of Miku's dead body. Haku and her company found Rin and were then visited by Gakupo and Luka. Luka escorted Rin and Neru off the premises and Gakupo took Haku and Ruko to investigate what Kiru was up to.

After a quick fight with Kiru, after she killed Haku and Ruko, Urotander's crew came and kidnapped Kiru as Gakupo and Gumi were leaving. Luka took Neru and Rin to where the Pocaloids were being held and freed them, not knowing who they were exactly. Sometime after Gakupo was dropped off and the police raid, Gakupo was possessed by Reis Korn and killed Miki and possessed Piko, before returning home and having Keine kill him and taking over Luka.

When the auction took place, Gumi and the police swarmed in and secured the place, but lost the Pocaloids. Kiru and Yuki escaped and met up with Gumi and me, then Kiru ran away with me in tow while Gumi concluded the raid.

During all of this, Kaito tried to investigate Urotander by going in undercover, not letting anyone else know. He took Reis Korn's lamp and fled to where the group was, and Keine died in the fall of the hotel. Kaito destroyed Reis' lamp, thus killing him, and we gained new but unused equipment. We went to the mansion where Kaito, Rin, Sonia, Yuki and Kiyoteru where at and each had their own part to play.

Rin activated the barriers but got lost; Sonia played with me before leaving; Yuki and Kiyoteru were shot down by Gumi, and Kaito tried to eliminate Rin but failed due to intervention from the group. And the rest was already discussed.

I munched on the last of my fries as the discussion ended, and we picked up our trash and threw it away as we left. over the course of the discussion, we had attracted stares from fanboys and curious listeners, and until we were through the door, I was worried that someone didn't remember that Halloween was around the corner and try to tell me off about my sword.

The streets started to fill up with people, so we hurried to Urotander's place taking two steps at a time. Soon enough, the address Kaito gave us led us to a large mansion. There was no name plate, and the gate was already open, so we assumed that Rin was already expecting us. And she was, as we found out when we had gone through the gates. She closed the automated gates and sent a laugh over the intercom.

"So, this is the final road," I muttered, turning back to the mansion.

"What makes you say that?" Kiru asked, giving me a nervous smile.

"Well, this would be considered the final dungeon, except there doesn't seem to be anyone but our friend here. And this is the road that leads up to it," I answered.

"And what would the way out be?" she asked.

"Through the boss' chambers, or the way out will appear when the boss is defeated."

"Is there a way to defeat the boss without killing them?" Gumi asked, startling me.

"Of course, but you have to work them into checkmate without making it a stalemate, which is really hard unless both the hero and the boss are playing by the same rules," I explained.

"Like a game of chess," Gumi said quietly. She took a deep breath then looked at the mansion as we reached the steps. The door opened, and someone who looked like Keine in a maid outfit stepped out to greet us.

"Welcome, adventurers," she said, bowing. "I am the Urotander's maid, Miko Momone. We have been waiting for you. If you would please follow me, please."

She turned and reentered the house, and we entered after her. I was last so I was about to close it, but it closed on its own. I think this place is one giant machine.

Taking several turns and through a throne room, Miko led us to a small room in a pocket in the building. In the room was two two-person couches facing each other, an old TV set next to one of the couches, a simple coffee table and Urotander themselves.

I haven't met them properly yet to know her name, though from the conversations I've been having this past few days I should know by now that her name is Rin Kagamine. Rin sat on a lone chair by the coffee table, sipping tea and watching something on TV, wearing an intricate yellow and black Victorian dress that was entirely too fluffy to possibly be comfortable.

She did not stir when we entered the room, possibly absorbed in the TV program, so Miko approached her, but Rin threw her half empty cup of tea at her after Miko informed her that we were here. "I know they're here! Go make yourself useful and finish the preparations, you idiot!" she yelled at Miko.

Timidly, Miko backed away and walked to the far wall. "Take a seat, you don't want to stand for the time," Rin suggested.

We took her advice and quietly sat down, me and Kiru on the couch next to the television set and Gumi on the other. Miko opened a panel in the back of the room and pressed a series of buttons, and then closed it after the panel beeped in confirmation. I started for my sword and Gumi her gun when the room suddenly started shaking.

My glove was batted away by the vibrating sword and reached over and I wished that my hand had landed on Kiru's shoulder and not her… knees. I pulled my hand back before she batted it away and tried to stay seated on the couch. Kiru looked at me, blushing, before focusing on her own position. I looked over at the other three to see that they were doing the same, except that Rin wore a seat fastener. The TV set was sliding up and down on the table, stretching out the cords that held it there.

I looked up as the ceiling split in two, revealing the sun before a screen shaded us from its harsh rays. Soon after the room stopped shaking, and I got myself back on the couch and helped Kiru do the same, as she was going under the table. That was when I noticed that all the furniture except for the room itself was fastened down. except for the single vase in the corner, which had tipped over.

The TV had shut off, and after a few attempts to turn it on, Rin punched the screen in before pushing it aside and sat up.

"Miko, the TV doesn't work," she complained as the maid picked the vase up.

"Yes, ma'am!" Miko said, hurrying to the set when Gumi suddenly stood up, took out her gun and shot the TV until her clip was empty.

"Never mind," Rin said blandly. "Get the guns."

"Yes, ma'am!" Miko repeated, turning back to grab a suit case that was tuck up near the panel. I took this time to look where we were, and as there were no windows, so I went to the door, but when I tried to open it, it wouldn't budge. "The door only unlock when either Mistress Rin wants it or I is dead," Miko explained, speaking like a breaking record.

She placed the suitcase down on the table in between Gumi and Rin, after Rin shooed Kiru and me off the couch we were sitting on. She stood next to me, wrapping her arms around me. I did the same, still watching what Miko was doing. She opened the suitcase and pulled out two revolvers with six empty chambers each. She pulled out one bullet and loaded it in one of the guns, before placing both back in the suitcase and strapped both down.

A contraption in the case spun the two guns around shuffling too fast for my eyes to track either gun for long. Kiru spun her eyes for a little longer before giving up, stepping dizzily. Soon the shuffler stopped and both girls drew the gun in front of them when Miko unbound them and proceeded into a stand off. Miko jumped back as Rin pulled the hammer down and pulled the trigger.

_Click._

Miko turned as Gumi took her turn.

_Click._

_Click. _Rin 2-4

Gumi 2-4.

Rin 4-2.

Both 5-1.

"Heh, it looks like I win," Rin said, pulling down the hammer. "Miko, get the clean up kit. We're going to need it soon."

"Yes ma'am!" Miko responded, turning and hurrying toward the far wall. She found another hidden panel and entered another code, this time returning with the clean up kit. "Here it is, ma'am."

"Good, Miko. I'm sorry to say that you came all this way just to deliver me all you equipment without using it, except you, Poe Miku. I think I'll spare you for sometime before I feel like killing you, but as you know, I might get some use out of you, err, I mean that body of yours," Rin spoke confidently, looking at each of us in turn. "Good Night, Gumi Megpoid. Have Sweet Dreams."

She put her finger through the finger guard, and Gumi visibly tensed up. Rin placed the barrel between her eyes and with one last laugh, pulled the trigger.

_Click._

We stood there frozen, waiting for the sound of gunfire. It was quite enough to hear everyone's breath and a distant construction site being worked on. After several moments, Kiru relaxed, causing me do the same. Miko gradually showed her surprise, before dropping the clean up kit. That snapped both of them out of their frozen states and rather than shooting, Gumi kicked Rin to the floor and stomped on her back, pinning her to the ground.

"Checkmate," Gumi said coolly, pointing the gun down at the defeated Rin.

"Damn it!" Rin yelled angrily, making Miko jump. "Damn it! Damn it all to hell!"

Miko looked down, thinking, before kneeling down beside Rin. "Do you want me to lower the tower?" she asked randomly.

"NO! Fukk the tower! Just get rid of them!"

"Do you want me to go with them?"

"I don't care!" Rin barked, struggling under Gumi's boot. Miko stood up and gave the three of us a strange, goofy look before turning back to Rin.

"Are you sure?" she asked, pressing Rin's buttons.

"Goddamn it, Sukone! YES!" Rin shouted, confusing my trio.

"Sukone?" Gumi asked.

"Yeah, I rebuilt Sukone using her, Len and Luka's mechanical parts, and programmed her to be the best maid I could have," Rin admitted.

"Then what did you tell her the best way to escape a closed room situation is?" I asked. Rin turned toward me before looking away, thinking.

Meanwhile, Miko ran toward us with an anime cat expression obvious on her face before grabbing us and dragging us over to Gumi, who was pulled off of Rin and dropped the loaded gun, which fired, as the hammer was cocked upon landing and then firing from the force of the impact, into Rin's legs, then wrapped her arms around us tight before glowing and levitating off the ground.

"Hey! Wait!" Gumi protested, trying to free herself, while me and Kiru tried to move our hands from each other's sensitive spots, but Miko ignored us and the air around us waved out of focus. I saw Rin sit up, looking in wonder at us, not really showing if her legs were bothering her.

"Sukone! Err, I mean, Miko!" the three of us said in near unison, trying to get her attention. All that really changed was the image of our surroundings, which turned form the wooden, sun-roofed mansion parlor to some place out in the country.

And I could not believe that I could actually see the real Miku alive.

* * *

**Thus ends the Broken Side Arc. Please Review!**

**Anyone recognize the card that Rin pulled out in the intro? It's a reference to Zathura.**

**I wonder if anyone's heard a lot of Vocaloid music, and I wonder if anyone recognizes the songs Kiru played on Hankyou's stereo system.**

**And the names of Hankyou's friends...**


	11. Delinquent Arc Prologue

"Ready Gumi?" Miku asked, her eyes cheerful and excited.

"Why wouldn't I be?" I told her, feeling her happiness. The leather patches on her face reflected the weary light of the classroom, and I believe my own were doing the same. I stood up from my desk and packed only my computer and a few other things, then put my backpack on and started out of the classroom.

"Gumi-san, please take a seat, and Miku-san, return to your classroom," Kiyoteru-sensei told us. Me and Miku looked at each other, and silently shared an idea.

"Kutabare, Sensei," we said together, leaving the classroom. I left my schoolwork and textbooks, but I don't need them. Let them turn it into the library, less stuff I have to waste energy carrying around.

We past my locker and I grabbed my coat, gym clothes, and outdoor shoes. "Took you long enough to get here," I said, switching shoes.

"Couldn't switch in a new Admin quick enough," she said.

"Who is it this time?" I asked halfheartedly. I didn't give a crap who was on Admin duty unless it was me, which had only once happened and I loved it.

"Akita, I think, but I didn't really check, so it might as well as have been Yuri," she said, putting her hand on her chin in a thinking pose. I stood up and picked up my backpack and started to walk out.

Admin Duty was where one of our crew would hook up to the database directly and receive and manage all the data. They would monitor the life readings of each of us and send us messages on what we needed to do to help us along.

When I was hooked up, it felt like you were swimming in an endless ocean and could dance and sing to the harmony and it always seemed like ecstasy mixed with complete bliss and purity. I always imagined freedom, but when I was hooked up, no amount of adults or trolls could ever disturb me as I soared through the database with my digital wings.

My next Admin date was this afternoon, so I was extremely excited. But we had plenty of time to play before hand, so we walked around town and played with the neighborhood kids.

"Hey, Gumi! Miku!" Gackt called, the purple haired boy waved as we approached, his purple-green eyes also cheery. Like him, everyone in this place had two colored irises, the outer half one color and the inner half another. Occasionally, we find someone with three colors, but rarely do we see them with only one.

Eye color is told by saying the outmost color then the inner color. On the occasion that someone had three, say brown-green-yellow, brown would be the outer color with green as the middle color and yellow being the inner color. However, if the person has three colors arranged like a pi-chart, then there is no order.

"Yo! Gackt!" I called, waving back. "How's it going? Your girl still doing well?"

"Of course, why would I care for her if I couldn't take care of her?" he said, his leather T-patches flashing brilliantly under his eyes.

Another thing about here that you'll quickly discover is that, due to advancements in piercing technology, stitched in leather patches are the norm amongst teems. I had three crown patches, one on my nose and one under each eye, all three pointing down; and Miku had three rectangle patches between her eyes and three dots under each. She also has blue-yellow eyes and I have red-green eyes.

"That's cool of you," Miku said, giving him a smile.

"Thanks. You guys heading anywhere?" Gackt asked.

"No where specifically. Is something up?" I asked.

"Not really, but this guy yesterday came by wearing a grayish-white army jacket and black slacks carrying a crude bastard sword. Said he was looking for the mayor, but I know his thought. I pointed him toward the bakery, and he hasn't come back yet. Don't think he will."

"Right. Catch his name?"

"Mikoto, I think," Gackt said. "But it don't matter. He's gone, and there's no trouble now 'cept the Gestapo, but they're just be trollin' our fun until there's no more fun."

Gestapo refers to the adults in the area that ruins every bit of fun we have, regardless of whether we're doing it on our own time. And they made up a crap load percent of the adults living here.

"Why don't we rebel against them? They'll be out of our hair forever," Miku suggested. I smiled wide as I began to think about it.

"Only keep some to make it appear that we're still under their control," I prompted.

"And wipe out he rest," Gackt added. "Sounds like an idea."

"But there's only one problem, which is supplies and training," I pointed out.

"That's the only problem though," Miku put in.

"If it's just those two things," someone said nearby, making us jump and turn around suddenly. We saw a overgrown businessman with the worst cared for face and a young woman with lazily put together clothes. She would be more attractive in different clothes, though. "Then I can provide for you," the man said, smiling.

"Why would we trust you, or her? You barely even look human," Gackt retorted. The man balked, then pulled out a mirror from somewhere and looked at himself. Like some cheesy movie, the mirror shattered, and broke more as each fragment landed on the pavement.

"My apologizes," the man said half-sarcastically. He took off his hat and held it to hide his face while he turned around. When he placed his hat back on his head, he looked like he did care for it, as the deformities disappeared. The woman didn't look surprised, which was nearly the opposite for us.

"How did you do that?" Miku blurted out.

"A magician never reveals his tricks, nor do I, but I'm not a magician, I'm Ezashin. Leveah Ezashin, if you please," he said. "And this is Sonia Diller, my second in command."

"That's some second in command," I said, looking at her. "What makes her above all the guys? Her flexibility?"

Sonia disappeared briefly from her spot beside Leveah and lifted me up and flipped me upside down and held me a few inches from the ground. "No, child, I made her second for her abilities. But yes, her flexibility is still better than most," he said. "Drop her."

She again dematerialized, letting me fall on my head. "So, that's the kind of training we'll receive?" Gackt said as Miku helped me up.

"Similar, since you aren't part of my business, but you shall still receive enough to accomplish your goals," Leveah told us, when his phone rang. "Now if you'd excuse me, I have to take a call. Sonia, could you give them our business card?" he pulled out his phone and began to walk away. Sonia, who had been almost sneering at us relaxed her face and pulled out the business card. She walked over and gave Miku the card and ran off to catch up to her boss.

Me and Gackt huddled up to Miku to look at the card. The Number: *-***-826-7349. The logo was a silhouette of two orbiting lines and a electric bolt and the business initials, END, on top. The slogan was, "Enter the New Decree." How… fitting.

"The 'END' group. Perfect," Gackt complained.

"But it's the best shot we've got," I said.

"We'll need more people," Gackt said.

"Gumi and I have our group, so that might be a start," Miku said.

"And I'll ask around down here."

"So, it's settled then. We'll meet back at the park tomorrow to figure the rest of it out," I said, checking the time. We had spent nearly the entire day walking around the town and talking to Leveah and Sonia about getting rid of the Gestapo. It was time to head back.

* * *

**Thus begins the degrading of my trained vocabulary.**

**Guess what's the theme for the next Arc? Delinquents, Government, and other stuff. Such fun.**

**And finally, I no longer have to deal with those damn arc numbers! Wait... 826, damn you!**


	12. Matryoshka 1: Intro

Gakupo Kamui

Tired… So tired… I began nodding off, not listening to the teacher anymore. The scratching of the chalk, timed tapping of the pencils, and the warmth of the room chewed at my conscious, begging for me to rest my head on my desk.

I looked at the white board and scribbled down a few more notes when the door to the classroom opened. It was Kiyoteru-sensei, taking over early for homeroom. That was fortunate for me as homeroom was the last class for the day.

"You're early," Kaai-sensei said as he entered, voicing my thought.

"The apparently Awol Brigadier General sent the mayor a letter stating that he's passing on his rank. I've a bit nervous since it might invite the military here," Kiyo-sensei told her, taking a stack of papers and looking them over.

"He can't do that! Brigadier or not, Military ranks aren't passed down like nobility!" Kaai-sensei argued.

"I know that, but there's something about it that he didn't state."

"That would be?"

"Who's receiving the rank," Kiyo-sensei said, which Kaai-sensei notably pushed to the back of her mind like a bad joke.

"Yeah, yeah. Oh well. Who ever receives the rank will be pulled aside along with him and talked to. Not like it has anything to do with us, so go back to the office and finish that. I'm in the middle of class."

My hopes for early homeroom sunk, as well as my head to the desk. Damn it! Kiyo-sensei put the papers back into the bin and hurried back to the teachers lounge and Kaai-sensei resumed class, but not before Luka walked into class and made her way over to me, seemingly oblivious to the class and the teacher looking at her with confused but strict eyes.

"Gackt," she whined, staring at me pouting.

"What do you want?" I stared boredly back, not wanting to deal with her.

"Kamui-san, would you mind introducing our young guest?" Kaai-sensei asked, the interruption obviously getting on her nerves.

"Yes, Sensei," I said, sighing and standing up. "This is Luka Megurine, my cousin that's visiting me from Tokyo. She's in the fifth grade and she's staying with my folks for the time being."

"Fifth grade, shouldn't she be in school?" Kaai-sensei asked me.

"Yes, and my parents are working on finding a permanent solution to keep it that way," I told her.

"How long is she staying?"

"A week," I said.

"So within that week, I should be getting better papers from you. Is that how a good role model acts?" she said, pinning me in a no-true-win situation. If I said yes, then she'll try to hand out a research assignment and will expect me to hand something in that…

"Yeah, umm, sure," I said.

"Then you won't mind if you make up the last research assignment for me? Keep in mind that if your cousin comes back in, I'll have her read it," Kaai-sensei threatened.

"Yes, ma'am," I said, sitting down. Purely out of spite for something, Luka sat on my lap, taking up most of the remaining space between me and the desk.

"What are you doing?" I asked Luka quietly, but she didn't say anything for the rest of class. Then, very quietly, "Ten… nine… eight…" I looked up at the clock as it rang for homeroom.

"I'm expecting that report someday, Gakupo!" Kaai-sensei yelled across the room as she left it.

"Five… four… three…"

I looked at Luka as she gripped either side of my chair and moved to the middle of the chair. She looked back at me without turning her head. It hit me then.

"Don't you dare…" I warned. She smirked and proceeded to bounce up and down on me like a fitness ball. The students sitting around me started snickering and others looked away in disgust, but not before I saw their grinning faces.

"Luka!" I snapped at her, trying to get her off me, but she followed my push and turned around and continued. I looked up to see Kiyo-sensei enter the room, look up at me, then dash back out. When he came back in a second later, he acted like he didn't see me and hurried to the teachers desk to start class.

Luka tried to get his attention by breathing deeply, but was ignored.

"You guys are no fun," Luka complained, stopping.

"I'm not supposed to be 'fun'," Kiyo-sensei told her. "I am supposed to teach, but you can find my teachings fun. You can find that going to the right school is also entertaining."

"Hmm," Luka grunted, and we began the last leg of class.

When we got home that night, Luka locked herself in the garage where she usually is, tinkering with a multitude of random mechanisms and machines. I took to the computer and looked up the school's online grade book to see what I was missing, just the last research report, and checked my email. And my online writing account.

Pretty soon I had half a dozen pages typed up and another file to put up online, but my research report hadn't been started. I opened another MS Word document and opened up the web browser and began to type in the research topic when the doors to the garage opened up.

Luka walked out and reached around the office chair and hugged me, and I put my hand on hers before getting back to work. "Don't say I'm your cousin. It sounds so incestuous. You leave so much unfulfilled and a girl so unsatisfied," she said softly, and that made my hands stop moving for a moment. "Are you coming to bed soon? Or are you going to let it chill my small body alone?"

My hands froze. Crap, if she continues like this…

"Yeah, I'll be there soon," I told her, but she didn't let go.

"Do I have to lead?" she asked, turning the chair around. She was short, short for twelve, despite her long pink tresses. Her pink eyes were as sweet as ever, and the rest of her body was just too mature for her age.

My screensaver flashed in her eyes, and I decided to give up on the report for now. She led me to the bed room where both the beasts, both too young, were uncollared.

* * *

The next day played out like any other day, but fortunately this time Luka didn't show up. I spent lunch in the library as much as I could taking notes for the research on color gangs.

When I got home, I let Luka hang off my shoulders and got the report almost done, but at the cost of having to get coffee to wake me up the next morning. I spent the last few minutes before school finishing both the report and fiction and printed off the report and had it ready to turn in when a speeding car nearly hit me and knocked the compiled report out of my hand. The police car following it didn't give me much notice either, but a couple of passing students from a junior high school, one with long blue hair and the other short green, help me gather the papers.

"Thanks," I said to the two, who said their 'welcomes and left. I tried to gather the report into a straight stack as best I could and hurried on. During school, I noticed that I accidentally printed out my fiction and it got mixed in with the report so I ended up putting off Kaai-sensei and spent the rest of the afternoon with Luka dragging me on a date on my expense.

When we got back, I made sure to separate out the documents and put the report into my bag before being dragged to bed by an impatient child.

* * *

I woke early the next morning, way earlier than I've ever accomplished before. I decided to sleep in and cuddle with Luka, who was in deep slumber, finally getting up when the alarm clock rang an hour later. I got out of bed dizzy and changed into school clothes and stuffed the report in my bag before relaxing and entering the kitchen for something to eat.

I looked to see what we had and settled for some oatmeal. I took my time, getting my head in gear for the day. I glanced at the clock and for a moment and saw that I had not much time left. I froze, then looked back at the clock on the oven, and saw that I had only a few minutes until school started.

I wolfed down as much of my oatmeal as possible and put the almost empty bowl in the sink. I grabbed my bag and ran for the door, not even stopping to check if I had locked it or not.

I ran through the streets, impatiently pacing at crosswalks as cars passed by. I jumped the fence and ran across the football field, not exactly noticing that I was the only one around. I made it to the front gate when I grabbed the front door and pulled myself into it, finding it still locked. I stumbled back dazed and confused when I heard someone calling me from behind. I looked to see the night watch coming toward me, holding out his electric torch.

"You okay, kid?" he asked, looking at me concerned.

"No, I'm late," I admitted. "It's way too early for school to start," I said, leaning against the wall trying to catch my breath.

"You're right, it's almost an hour before the doors open for students," the night watch told me.

"What?" I asked confused. "It's… an hour… before…? Oh… what… damn." I looked back at the doors as it dawned on me, then turned back to follow the night watch to wait out the time.

"So, do you have your report today, Kamui-san?" Kaai-sensei asked just before last homeroom, tapping her foot on the ground irritated in front of my desk.

"Yes, I do," I said, reaching into my bag and grabbing the papers. I pulled them out and handed them to her. She took them and gave me a smile before walking peacefully away. Now that that's dealt with, I thought, I might want to make it up to Luka and take her on a date. I heard the bell ring when Kaai-sensei reentered the room, returning to my desk.

"You might want to find your report before submitting smut," she said, handing me back my papers. I looked at the top sheet and saw that it was my fiction, not my report. "I'll tell Kiyo-san took overlook your absence if you hurry to your house and get me the report you promised, okay?" she told me, giving me a shameful smile.

"Yes, Kaai-sensei!" I said, grabbing my bag and rushing out the door.

I don't know how fast I was running, or who or how many people I bumped into, nor did I know what kind of luck or life that fate had in store for me or Luka. My parents went away on a business trip, and never returned; the only reason I knew they were alive is the weekly check from them to pay the bills, but that didn't mean I was right.

My heart burned. My legs sore. Adrenaline keeping me going forward. I was running without reason that I knew of, but the reason was hiding weakly from me, every footfall dislodging it further, making it clearer.

I made it to the front steps when I noticed the door wide open. "Luka?" was my first thought. I crawled up the stairs my body was so tired and heavy, even assisted by the handrail. I pushed the door open to see the entryway trashed, but everything otherwise unscathed.

"Luka?" the thought escaped my mouth, barely lighter than my breath.

"In here," I heard someone, not Luka, both masculine and feminine but one voice and two words, call from the bedroom. I ambled over to the door to see a man wearing a gray Marine jacket with silver embroidery on the shoulders and long white hair that was tied in a thick ponytail pinning another, less groomed man on the ground in handcuffs.

Then there was Luka, laying on the bed, her breaths heavy and sobbing, her body open and defenseless. I looked back to the two men and the Marine nodded to me, his red eyes angry but composed, prompting me to take care of her, which I did.

"Luka?" I said, kneeling by her, but she just looked at me and began sobbing more. "There, there. I'm here, Luka," I said, cradling her. She reached around my body with her arms and tears started to flow, unable to speak.

The Marine placed a blanket on her lower body then hauled the other man out the door, leaving me alone to deal with Luka. I cleaned her up and didn't return to school that day, but I took her to school in the morning with me to prevent another bad day, this time making sure it was locked. Luka read out my report like Kaai-sensei promised she would make her, and when she was done I remembered the two girls from a couple days ago.

The girls with the blue and green hair. Apparently two of the color gangs wore those two colors, and they were the only ones left in town. The Blue Squares and the Green Fedoras. There used to be Yellow Scarves and Red Boots, but they were driven out of town by the sudden police effort that was assisted by both Green and Blue gangs after they took out the old government a couple years ago. The two sparked up occasionally, but most of the fighting is covered up by the government of the region. No one questions why, and I have several probable reasons.

The old governor was actually the head of both the Yellow and Red gangs, Miko Momone, and she was brutal. She's Luka's mother, but we haven't seen her since her gangs were driven out. The new governor, Kaito Shion, is the head of the Blue Squares but unlike Momone, he is kind and respectful, even when he's the most corrupt juror on the stand. His wife Meiko and their twins Rin and Len live else where, but they receive quite a portion from his work.

After class, Kiyo-sensei pulled me aside to ask about my absence, along with Kaai-sensei and Luka. I choked up at first, but I told them everything, from leaving the classroom to entering my house to the marine taking care of Luka and me arriving too late and everything leading up to locking the door this morning.

They dismissed us, probably to talk on it while me and Luka take our minds off it.

The next morning wouldn't be as great as we thought.


	13. Matryoshka 2: Some Powerful Wine

Marine

"So what should we say this one did? Theft? Murder?" Kaito said, almost gleefully.

"Rape of a minor," I told him, watching his hands deftly roll a switchblade over and under his fingers. The handcuffed man also watched carefully, fully knowing that the blue haired governor wanted more than his money. "I don't get your human customs, but can you charge anyone with just anything if you don't like them?" I asked, remembering Lady Piren.

"To be fairly honest, you have to have something to charge him with that has evidence, such as guns from earlier cases that we'd say he used to, well, anything that relates to the case," he said, not missing a beat. "What about you, Mikoto? Have you committed any crimes? Arson? Jaywalking? Have you sliced and diced orphans and feed them to children in need?"

"Feeding children with children? My, that's a bit low," I told him, relaxing. I approached a nearby wall and leaned against it, crossing my arms. "No, the most… inhuman thing I can say I did to a human is… well, I don't know what humans deem inhuman, so I don't know."

"Lets say that a woman came up to you and tried to say that you're the father of her child. What would you do then? Deny her a father for the child and make her suffer? Or take on the responsibility and have your rank in the military drop like a fly?"

"The former. Not my problem."

"I see," he said, glancing at me. his gaze faltered and he crouched down in the man's face, gripping the knife's handle. "How about you? You'd probably do the same, abandon her and climb the ranks of the military and gain lots of money while the woman suffers and dies with the child."

The man was gagged, so shook his head in denial.

"No? You would take her in?" The man nodded, and Kaito stood up chuckling to himself. "No, you would strangle the child and rape the woman, then leave her to die on the side of the road while you get away scot-free. However! That's not how this world works, my dear fellow!" Kaito said loudly, before reaching down, slitting the man's throat and threw the dagger at me with pin point precision.

However, I caught the knife and threw it into a portrait in such a way that the handle pointed to Kaito and the man.

"I see! It seems I need to get more demons in the military! They're so naturally talented!" Kaito blared, when four of Kaito's men entered the room and walked to his side, two of the men holding a tarp that they covered and carried the man in away. "Yes?" Kaito asked the remaining two, composing himself like a politician he is.

"There is a student talking about color gangs in school," one said.

"Yeah, and? It's just an unruly punk," Kaito downplayed it.

"He has the daughter of Momone possibly involved in a prostitution ring," the other one said.

"What evidence do we have?"

"He's been writing the 'scenes' into doujishin-like format, and they got a visitor yesterday."

"Who is he? Can you describe him?"

"He's dead," I piped up. "He's the man that was escorted out just a few moments ago."

"Well, we might want to get someone else one the case, incase the Military want to get involved," Kaito retorted.

"When do you need him?"

"Actually, we already have our witness to the rink. In this very room to be exact," Kaito said, his snake-like eyes glancing in my direction.

"I don't know a damn thing," I said, standing up and started to walk out of the room when a blue haired blue and green eyed girl and a green haired green and red eyed girl entered the room.

"Kaito," one of them said sweetly, then the other, and even before I left the room I could tell where that was heading. I heard the heavy footfalls of the men escorting me from behind, making sure I didn't just spin around and join in on that perverse human crap. Like they could actually do anything to me, or for that matter my younger brother or his friends.

Once outside, I looked up to see twilight falling, the clouds rushing to follow the sun as it dipped under the horizon. I pulled out my cell phone and dialed a local friend, who showed up moment later in her jeep.

"Need a ride?" Momone said, opening the door.

"That's why I called you," I said getting in, sighing.

She giggled, and drove off to the base. "Now, now, Colonel Keiko. Don't be all happy because you got called to the governor's place," Momone joked.

"Whatever, First Sergeant."

Haku Yowane

I shouldn't be here. I looked around the dance floor nervously, no longer able to see my cousin. I shouldn't be staining these nice clothes. I looked again at the medieval-like dress that she had put me and basically dragged me to this place in. How embarrassing am I that she'd leave me alone in a place like this. I barely ranked as a corporal, and most of these people here at least were master sergeants. Sukone herself was a civilian, but I was allowed to bring her here, but now that I lost her, I don't know how this will turn out. Not that I wasn't worried how it was going to anyway.

I held my hands together and tried to fake a smile, but it must have not worked so well as a soldier, I believe a first lieutenant from the single silver bar on his shoulder, approached me.

"Are you feeling okay, Corporal?" the First Lieutenant asked, a questioning look on his face.

"Yes, First Lieutenant!" I said, standing upright, arms racing to my sides, before I caught myself and tried to ease up, and ended up feeling like I was ducking, which unnerved me more. "I mean…"

"How many drinks would you say you've had tonight?" he asked, his eyes flicking to the table. I glanced to see that my glass was nearly empty, reflecting the two empty wine bottles and a third one comparative to my glass.

"Too many, First Lieutenant," I said guiltily.

He sighed and picked up an empty bottle looking at the label. "I wonder where we found such a drinker. This is some powerful stuff," he said, gesturing the bottle. "One bottle of this should be enough to calm the nerves of a sheep, yet you're on your third. Tell me something, are you prone to hangovers?" he asked, putting the bottle down.

"Yes…" I said, knowing what he was getting at.

"You do realize what happens in the morning after these dances?" he asked, obviously not too pleased with my answer. Or any other answer I gave in this case. "I wish I could do something, but seeing that I'm not your CC there's nothing I can do to save you."

He turned and walked away, leaving me to sit there in my guilt that would only worsen with wine.

The party came to an end shortly after that, but I had unfortunately been unable to stop myself from consuming the last of the bottle, as the effects of the wine slowly but surely creep into my vision. I saw Sukone eventually and she hurried over to me, as the ground seemed to like to hug me.

"Haku… don't tell me…" she moaned, trying to collect my wine laden body.

"I'm so sorry!" I cried, tears adding on to the fog in my eyes.

"Here," a man said nearby. I looked in the direction to see him with dark red eyes and white hair, but I couldn't tell who he was, nor could I tell his rank since my sight was all blurry. He was reaching down to me with something white in hand, possibly a handkerchief.

"Thank you," I said, grabbing the handkerchief and drying my eyes with it. When I looked again, I was holding onto his sleeve, not a handkerchief, nor was he holding anything. Shooting my mood way down. "I'm so sorry!" I cried, letting go and standing up and bowing slightly, then realizing I was making it worse. I stood and repeated my apology, then realized that apologizing wasn't going to help, so I apologized again. And again and again.

"Calm down!" he said in unison with Sukone.

"I'm sorry!" I repeated when Sukone nearly gagged me by cutting off my air flow. When she let go, I looked at the man to see something I didn't want.

He was a Colonel, and he didn't look overly happy.

I felt the worry build up in me, worry that he would file a request to kick me out of the military because I defaced his jacket, because I was acting like this. Because I was so very clearly drunk.

But he just smiled. "Feel better?" he asked.

"Y-yeah," I said, confused.

Someone chuckled beside the Colonel, a woman with soft pink hair. "Jegus, Col," she said causally. "You're such a womanizer."

"What? No I'm not!" he said, making me giggle before I could catch myself. His eyes flicked towards me, before standing up straighter. "Let me properly introduce myself: my name is Colonel Mikoto Keiko. This here," gesturing his lady, "is First Sergeant Luka Momone."

"Umm, my name is Corporal Haku Yowane and this is my cousin Tei Sukone," I told him, gesturing to her. "It's nice to meet you both."

"Same here," First Sergeant Momone said.

"Colonel! You have a call!" one of the lingering soldiers said to him when he got into arms length.

"I'll see you two in the morning," Col Keiko said, turning quickly and hurried with the soldier to the phone.

"He didn't say bye to you…" Sukone said to Momone.

"We share a house on base, so he didn't need to," Momone admitted.

"Engaged?" she asked.

"No. Not even close," Momone told her. "Anyway, we need to get your sister to her bunker before she marries the floor."

"Haku…" Sukone whined as she peeled me off the floor again.

Mikoto

The private stood patiently as I told Kaito that I wasn't going to take part of his shenanigans in quite a rude manner.

"But Colonel, innocent lives are at stake," he baited.

"Yeah, well then we'll see if I can even make it to save the piranhas," I said, putting the phone down. I sighed and turned toward the private, who was looking a bit tired. "You have a place you need to be, Private?" I asked.

"Yes, sir," he said. "Bunker 2, sir."

"Do you know the way on foot?"

"Yes, sir."

"Be on your way, Private."

"I need a battle buddy, sir."

"Let's go then, Private."

"Yes, sir!" the man said, trying to follow customs.

However, shortly before we left the room we met up with Momone and the other two, one looking really under the weather. "Need a ride?" Momone asked, spying the private.

"If I may, First Sergeant!" he responded.

"Which bunker are you staying in, Private?"

"Bunker 2, First Sergeant."

"Follow me," Momone said. "What's an e-fuzzy nothing still doing here?" she asked me.

"Don't ask me," I told her as we headed out. When we made it outside and partway to the jeep with Yowane in tow, my cell phone, that I was near completely sure was off, began ringing. I drew it out and answered it, only to have the snake respond in a similar fashion.

"Don't you think that it's time for you to give in, Colonel? After all, I'm in nigh complete control of the region!" Kaito reminded me for the thirteenth time.

"Not a chance," I told him as Momone unlocked the jeep and Sukone got in first, then Yowane and the private. Before I got in, I heard a sharp click both on the phone and next to my ear.

"Submit, Colonel," Kaito said into the phone, which echoed twice into my ear. I didn't have to look to know where he was, but I turned to look at him anyway, shutting the jeep door. Momone started up the engine before opening the door again, but instead of me getting in, the green haired girl of Kaito's got in and held a gun to Momone, telling her to leave, before exiting the jeep with a big grin on her face.

I met Momone's gaze as she pulled out of the drive way and onward to the crew's destinations. After a moment, one of Kaito's men brought a limonene around and Kaito ordered me to get in, which I should of just kicked everyone's asses right there, but I could just tell that would've ended well, so I entered the vehicle, followed by the girls and Kaito's men. They shut the door behind them and the chauffeur drove off, leaving Kaito.

My phone was still on, and from it I could still hear his dark voice.

"Good bye, my dear. I wish I could have been your husband. You'd made such a good wife."


	14. Matryoshka 3: Car Crashes and Timelines

Miku (?)

The chauffer drove on, taking us onto a military base. When he asked for everyone's id, we gave them up without asking. It was pretty much midnight, and Meggy was sort of nodding off. I gently shook her shoulder and she lifted her head to look at me, and leaned on my shoulder to rest. I petted her head softly until we stopped and the five of us, Kaito, me and Meggy, and Kaito's two handy men.

Kaito pulled out his cell and dialed a number, leading us toward a crowd of dispersing soldiers. When the person Kaito called didn't pick up, he motioned to a soldier and pulled him aside to have a quick chat with him about something interesting. When they finished, the guy hurried inside and Kaito led us to a parking lot with a lone jeep.

He herded us into the shadows and told Meggy to load her gun that he had told her to bring along, which she did, before recalling the number. The operator picked up, and Kaito told him to get Mikoto, which the operator put him on hold for a moment. I brought Meggy close to me to hug so I was occupied, and Meggy turned around so she could hug me back and rested her head on my chest while I leaned on a tree for support.

When Mikoto picked up the phone and Kaito answered, the two men began engaging in a colorful conversation, as Kaito tried to ring him in for some shenanigans he was pulling and Mikoto spat atrocities that made Kaito feel the need to continue to troll him. Mikoto quickly calmed down enough to hang up, and that made Kaito very pleased, seeing how his face showed that everything seemed to be going as he planned.

We stood there for a while, waiting for something. Soon, a group of people, one of them so very obviously drunk, came out with the private and started toward the jeep. Kaito redialed the number into his phone and pulled out his gun, and then motioned us to follow.

Meggy jumped into the jeep and told Mikoto's group to leave without him, then got out and returned to my side. His group followed directions and left, when our ride arrived to pick us up. Kaito motioned him to enter, and reluctantly he entered first, followed by me and Meggy and then Kaito's handy men. Kaito didn't enter himself, as his men closed the door behind them and the chauffer drove off, leaving him.

Mikoto still had his phone on, which Kaito kept speaking through for a bit before closing it. But rather than just that, he opened it back up and turned it off, then looked at our really interested eyes, giving us the unintended signal to jump on him and pin him down, or rather hold him down as when I went for his hands he showed me the strength of a Colonel and flung me away.

When we managed to get him under control, or rather eased him into giving up, he looked at the two others with slight interest before turning back to us. "Are they used to your antics?" Mikoto asked.

"Pretty much," Meggy said, rolling her eyes.

"Did Kaito say something about being a wife?" I asked. Mikoto said nothing, and out of curiosity, I reached up and grabbed the zipper on his jacket and unzipped it, to find something really interesting.

The chauffer honked his horn suddenly, and the two men barreled out the door that they opened. I was hooked onto what I saw, a mixture of confusion and strange fascination running through my head, that I couldn't react at all. I felt Meggy gently stirring behind me, trying to break our focus and failed, sitting upright but motionless.

Mikoto looked over out the front window to see why the chauffer had stopped and ditched the limousine so suddenly, much to his displeasure. He quickly zipped up his jacket and went through the open door, leaving us behind. We sat there for a moment thinking emptily to ourselves when a speeding humvee came out of the dim light ahead of us and totaled the limousine.

Tei Sukone

"Leave, girls!" the green haired girl ordered, and Luka put the jeep in reverse. Satisfied, the girl exited the car and with one last glimpse at Mikoto, Luka drove off. Everyone but Haku stayed quiet, content on listening to Haku incoherently babble about how she had messed up so bad that night and other times, including how she couldn't find a good hiding place for the dead cat we had a while back. I had nearly forgotten about that, and looked at my cousin, though I doubt she took heed since she continued to blab her faults.

We dropped off the private first before too long and started on towards Haku's bunker, when a familiar figure came into view. Luka stopped and Mikoto opened the door and entered, nodding to her to continue.

"So, how'd it go?" she asked.

"Not overly bad. It could have gone worse," he said, sighing. He looked back at Haku, who faded into just opening and closing her mouth and letting out sounds. I tapped her shoulder and shook her out of it, and she looked at me.

"Submit!" I heard the governor shout faintly in the darkness, and Mikoto's phone rang again. He ignored it, and when it didn't stop, he tossed it out the jeep window into the sidewalk.

"I'll get it in the morning," he said nonchalant. Suddenly, the jeep door on Mikoto's side popped out of its socket and started to fall away. He quickly grabbed the door handle and tried to hauled it back into place when the seat itself, seatbelt disengaging, jumped a few inches from where it was, prompting him to drop the door. He reached down and disconnected the electric cord from the door as it touched the ground and gave Luka one last glance before somersaulting out the door, seat following him.

"Col!" Luka shouted, before slamming on the brakes. However, the car that appeared out of the darkness in front of us, without their headlights on, didn't seem to particularly mind colliding with the jeep at full speed.

Mikoto and Kaito

Mikoto rolled out of the jeep as it collided with the car coming out of the darkness. Kaito, sensing the opportunity, walked swiftly to her side and pulled out his gun.

"Well, does that make two failed attempts on your life?" Kaito grinned, as he pinned Mikoto to the ground. "I wasn't even expecting the second. Guess things just go my way."

"Bull shit," Mikoto said, lifting Kaito's foot off of her. Kaito pressed down on his foot, and it slipped from Mikoto's grasp back onto her stomach.

"If you have any hope to escape my grasp, you have to put forth effort!" Kaito lectured.

"Why? I am putting forth all the effort I need," Mikoto challenged. Soon enough, several sergeants and a certain first lieutenant arrived at the car wreck. Mikoto lifted Kaito's foot off her body and then away with some force, causing him to flail for balance, then she sat up before looking up to seeing Kaito's gun pointed at her. She reached up and covered the barrel of the gun quickly when he pulled the trigger.

The force from the bullet blew the tip of the gun apart, much to Kaito's disappointment. A look of shock appeared across the governor's face, before he tossed the broken gun aside and backed away laughing.

"What is this? It doesn't make sense anymore! I've won! Submit! Ah ha!" he cried, hysterical. He fell to his knees as Mikoto stood up and brushed the dust from the tip of the gun off.

"You okay?" First Lieutenant Kamui asked, helping Mikoto stay up.

"Wonderful. I'll leave him to you. I've got something to check on," she replied.

"Right," Kamui said, before calling to the sergeants to take Kaito into custody.

Mikoto

I hurried to the jeep-convertible smashup and found the convertible's front bumper too close for comfort in the backseats. I heard the unfathomable babble coming from somewhere in it, hoping that it was Luka, but someone still alive was better than the other result. I grabbed something and, with my family's dominant trait, tore it from the mess and tossed it aside, then reached in for another piece.

I opened a pocket and found someone I didn't recognize with short brown hair and worked around them to get them out, opening other pockets in the process. Wondering where half the material came from, I removed the brown haired person, a woman and her two blonde children, none of them completely scathed, before I felt it was necessary to take bigger chunks.

A few privates and sergeants, all medics thankfully, came and retrieved the people, while a couple more lingered behind me, waiting for more.

By the time two thirds of the pile was separated, I stopped to get my bearings when I saw the civilian's leg gently slide out of the side. I tried once again, and found the three girls all together, but not to my liking. They were mostly battered in what appeared to be where the engines were. I gently lifted the civilian and placed her on the ground for the medics, followed by Corporal Yowane. I had to dig slightly more for Luka, but when it comes down to it, the last person will be in the worst condition. While the civilian and Yowane did get bloody with a few broken bones, they can recover from it.

I tentatively lifted Luka's mangled body from the wreckage and placed her on a stretcher. She coughed weakly to show me that she was alive, but from her missing left hand and lower leg, she probably wasn't going to serve anymore. I sat back onto the wreck and waved off the remaining medics, who were standing at attention by their supplies. I brushed my head of the slight amount of sweat that built up and looked up when a familiar private, wearing a staff sergeant insignia, walked up to me to hand me my phone.

"You got a call," he said, then absconded.

"I know I have a call. I always have a call," I muttered before opening my cell. And just like that, it rang, but instead of Kaito's number flashing across the screen, it was my brother. I hit the talk button and raised up to my ear. "Hello?"

"Yo! Your future, past, whatever self said you needed someone who can repair lost limbs and bodies, so I'm going to be over there sometime when it's light to drop off someone who can. Don't worry, I'm not going to kidnap them from some other world, but I did find someone from your current one that is willing to do it. I am going to say you're going to have to pay the bill though. Stable time loops, you know, so see you then!" Mikaru said, hanging up.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm sure we can deal with the bill alright," I muttered getting up, cheered up. I looked at the wrecked jeep and started walking home, giving a curious First Lieutenant a friendly smirk.

This was the life I chose, and I, personally, wanted to keep it this way. In the short stretch between my place and the base, I entered a completely dark space where I could see all the astrological bodies in good definition in the sky, including the partial moon and the second binary world on the other side of it, and saw a flower-like design out of the visible landmass on the surface. These human worlds are so perfect for them, I thought before continuing on my way.

Megurine

It was fairly early in the morning when I woke, and checking the clock it was long before Gakupo was supposed to be awake. It was even earlier than the time he woke up yesterday. I simply thought it was that I needed a drink of water, so I quietly got out of bed and walked over to the kitchen to get a glass when someone knocked on the door.

Really? I looked at the clock to see it was three fourteen in the morning, and if it was someone like yesterday then I wouldn't want to make the same mistake again, so I grabbed a frying pan and answered the door. It was a smaller version of the soldier from yesterday, having a stumpy white ponytail, spectacled red eyes, and a dark gray unbuttoned shirt and a striped red tee and simple black pants.

"Yes?" I asked, frying pan at the ready.

"A frying pan? He wasn't joking," the kid said under his breath. "Anyway, I need to talk to you about engineering."

"Really? This early in the morning? It can wait until the sun comes up!" I told him, closing the door. He grabbed the edge of the door and with unnatural strength, as I can easily beat Gackt in an arm wrestle, hauled it open, carefully making sure not to slam it the other way. I backed away from the door and held the frying pan poised to strike.

"That's not going to do much," he said, leaning on the doorway.

"Why do you want to talk about engineering at midnight? Is someone dying!" I yelled, wanting Gakupo to wake up.

"Yes, several people actually. And it has to be now because my future self told me it needed to happen now because it's the only chance to do so! You can beat the crap out of me later, like you already did to him, but we need to get on the road!" the kid told me.

"And why should I believe you? I know it's the generic story line to half a dozen anime and rpgs, but there's the off chance the guy's pulling a fast one. A pretty big fast one," I pointed out. "And don't give me a replica of myself! It could just as easily be a cosplayer!"

"Yeah, yeah. Well," he said, reaching into his pocket to retrieve a note and scanned over it before getting a strange look on his face. "Well, this was a waste. Should have complied, it would have spared you."

"Pardon me?" I said, when a girl appeared behind him, who looked exactly like me, but was wearing my purple sweater and pink skirt, along with my plush doll-hat.

"Alpha timeline Luka was killed by Beta timeline Luka for incompliance and sent into Beta timeline to replace Beta timeline Luka, therefore first Alpha timeline Luka becomes second Beta timeline Luka and vice versa," the girl said, confusing me for a second. When the meaning came to me, there was no time to dodge first Beta/second Alpha timeline Luka's knife.

"What was different in Beta?" I asked her, and she smiled wickedly.

"Simple, I complied the first time around, but it was too late because we found your body on the side of the road and tried to save you from us," she told me.

"Stable time loop math is hard," I said, giving in to death.

"I know how you feel, I'd rather not think too hard either, but someone has to."


	15. Matryoshka 4: Events of a Beta Version

**Sorry for the extreme lateness! I got lazy, and I've been caught up with story editing for a friend! And another story, and bluh bluh bluh.**

**Mikaru: 1 4M UNF4Z3D BY Y0UR HUM4N BLUHS**

**Saikun: Shut up (Yes, I finally got him on board... Sorry about your futures, Aiko and Anika!)**

**Mikaru: Yes, playing around with their characters was fun. He he he**

**Saikun: Shut it...**

* * *

Kaito

Silently she weaved in and out of the darkness of the night, eluding the ever so present cops that had nothing but dough nuts and women on their mind. The cops that noticed her presence choked on their sugary bread and reached for their night sticks, only to determine that she was too far to be caught. Of course, it would take effort, and effort took energy, but they needed their energy to take another bite into that pastry overly filled with fattening sugar.

She was the only one of us that the cops noticed, so all they could say was that a girl wearing a long red scarf and skimpy clothes did it, if they survived. Unbeknownst to them, she was only running from me, trying to get away without being caught. She was a wanted person, and I desired her so. Unbeknownst to her, a thick, red river was flowing behind her, catching up.

Ruko

Flowing over the ground, the sound of my skateboard skidding on the cracked streets filling the air. The man besides me looking for help, reaching in front of him, his desperate red eyes filled with tragedy as we hit the ground at about sixty miles an hour, before performing impromptu synchronized somersaults on the pavement, getting scratches every bump and crack we encountered. A lucky sharp rock skidded down the back of my neck and caught the collar of my jacket, tearing it free from its fixed position and carried the entirety of the cloth that stretched underneath. Suddenly, fractionally possible, the pavement turned into the sky as we trick-shoted off a car into the air quickly.

The hang time was deathly long, and there seemed no gravity for us as we just went up and up, watching as the spectators that merely stood there gaping and giving us looks of disdain grew smaller and smaller, until reality bent over backwards and made them about the size of pixels on a phone.

The man looking at me with scared red eyes that reflected my feelings couldn't do anymore than me, could tell by my tears that we weren't coming back up when we went down to reunite with the earth. One of my tears flew from my eye and into his, and I reached out to him steadily. The red collar that I had given him reflected the sun into my eyes, and I drew my arm away instinctually, but caught myself and he reached for my grasp as well.

I could tell that my undershirt had only barely made it from the blush on his face, but that was the least of my worries. I took his hand and drew him close and he reached around me to secure a good hold. The air around us started to slow, marking that we only had a few seconds left before we entered god's embrace and be amongst his children.

I heard the wings of an angel beat and turned to look, and saw it, an angel clad in black. He reached down and took hold of our clasped hands and gestured to close our eyes, and I did.

I blinked, and me and the man were safely on the ground, with the angel in black no where to be seen. Me and the man looked into each others eyes and brought each other close, listening to our hearts softly beat back into a comfortable rhythm.

"Are you okay, Ruko?" the man asked, and I nodded.

"Yes, I'm just fine, Rook," I told him and we turned to retrieved our wrecked skateboards. Uncertain to go back to where we were trying to go, hoping that the police car that spent its time trying to kill the kids of the future instead of saving them had left the area. By then it was night again, past the time we were supposed to meet Miku and Meggy for lights out.

"Just the two of us tonight again?" Rook asked, and I nodded. He reached around my stomach and pulled me into the shadows. From there, we saw some police officers on break yet again, having a dough nut break. We sunk further and his red soft cotton chest lent its warmth to my open back, smoothing the lukewarm breeze.

Someone wearing a skimpy red super hero outfit with a very long scarf darted past the cops and they were startled before resuming their off-dutiness. Soon after, a man in a long blue winter coat with a blue long scarf appeared on the scene and tore up the two officers like a bear on paid vacation without getting blood on his coat. Rook tensed up watching, and I stopped breathing, and the man went after the lady in red without a glance in our direction.

I felt the need to reach for my cell to call Miku or Meggy, and Rook was already on it. I felt myself faint, supported only by Rook's arm and not my own legs, and he asked for us to be picked up, to be told to wait for our ride. He said our thanks, and hung up. he dragged me to the corner to wait for our ride.

Kaito

I watched her long red scarf as she zoomed past an earlier point in our chase. She spat disgusted as she was unable to keep me from taking out these cops she's unknowingly leading me to. If she wishes to be the hero, I will be her villain. She's my red, I'm her blue. A negative image of each other, yet like the yin yang, equally real. She has one-half of the coin, unknowing yet angry and heroic, and I'm the other half, nigh-omniscient, calm, treacherous, and enjoying my game.

I stood on the light pole looking down on her, waiting for her next move as she surveyed the wreckage. I looked beyond her and saw something of interest, more cops and a high class business man with his dainty wife in a dirty sweater. I planned my next attack as she pondered over simpleton sayings and the mindset of the police, and started walking toward the business man. If not order then money.

Ruko

I shivered gently as I put on Rook's coat, covering up my shredded clothes, as he hummed a broken lullaby to pass the time. I leaned back on his chest and he reached around me again. His warm body would have became cold had I not been with him, acting as a blanket. His scarred chest gently rose and lowered as he breathed softly. My body received no less punishment than his, but I couldn't feel them.

"Hey, what are you two doing there?" a patrolling cop called out, noticing us.

"Sitting here, waiting for our ride," Rook told him half-heartedly.

"You two look like damaged goods. Want me to fix you up?" he asked, snickering. Rook looked at him, hinting at the inherit perverseness of that question, but the cop didn't get it. "My, even the lady is hurt. Why would she stay with you if all you're going to do is cut her up? Maybe you've tortured her mentally to never leave you, so I guess I have a reason to take you into custody," that cop rambled, taking out his handcuffs and approached us. I took it as if the cop was joking, but sure enough, the cop lifted me off Rook and cuffed my hands together.

"Hey!" I called and tried to get out of his grasp, and Rook got up and helped with that. He kicked the cop away and I backed away behind him, ready to run.

"Why you punk!" the cop spat and retrieved his nightstick. He lunged at Rook and missed, before barreling my way. I jumped to the side as he reached out for me, level with my chest. Rook kicked the guy away, propelling him forward into the ground, but the cop merely somersaulted back onto his feet and spun around, swinging his night stick. He missed both of us, but whipped the handcuffs out. Me and Rook ran into the alley, with the cop following.

Rook took out his cell phone and texted Neru to meet us at Ruhen street before turning to check if the cop hadn't had a heart attack. Unfortunately he didn't, and he seemed to be fit under the mass of fat. We exited the other side of the alleyway and turned right towards Ruhen. We saw Tei waiting outside her car and ran towards her, and when she saw us, she opened the back seats and we dashed in.

The cop hurried out of the alleyway and saw the two of us ducking into the car. Tei saw him and stood in front of the license plate to obscure the numerals and bent over the hood of the car as if reaching for the top of the car. So when the cop looked at the license plate he saw her flawless skin and dress that just barely covered her underwear.

"Hey~!" the cop called, trying to be alluring, but when he closed in and was about two arms length away, she turned toward him and pulled out her taser, threatening him not to come any closer. "Who the heck do you think I am?" the cop said, reaching out for her. She backed up and threw her taser out in front of her in defense, but it didn't stop his advance. She backed up and walked around the side of the car, the cop following.

She stared death into his eyes, and saw nothing but his twisted thoughts. Me and Rook forgotten, the man charged at Tei, when the driver door sprang open and smashed the cop's face, knocking him out. The driver, Haku, closed the door and rolled down the window.

"You okay, onii-chan?" Haku said, but Tei didn't respond. Instead, she walked over to the unconscious cop and put her taser to his neck and turned it on for several minutes. Sated, she stood and walked around and entered the passenger seat and stayed silent for a few more moments before bursting out laughing. "That's my girl!" Haku said cheerfully, high-five-ing her cousin and driving off.

Rin Kagamine

I looked over towards Tieru, Tei's brother, and watched him play some computer game, distracting me from my book. I'll admit, he is gorgeous, but I need to beat my brother to marriage if I ever wanted him, as Tei was his sister, thus if she marries Len…

I shook my head of the possibility of having to deal with indirect incest. I was going to marry Tieru, and Tei will have to deal with it. I tried getting back into my book when Len entered the room, munching on another banana.

"Don't eat too many of those or it'll catch up to you," I said, and he rolled his eyes and took another bite. He sat in an armchair and continued to eat. Tei was out right now picking up Ruko and Rook who gotten lost, with Haku driving. At least we'll know that they'll get back alright. If it was Meiko driving then we'd have to worry.

The phone rang, and since I was right next to it I picked it up. "Hello," I said boredly.

"Hey, Gackt here. Is Luka over there?" Gackt asked, worried.

"Hey Len. Is Luka here?" I called out to him, and he shrugged. "It doesn't seem like it. What's up?"

"She went to bed with me, but she disappeared when I got up this morning," he said.

"Not in the kitchen like a good housewife?" I asked sarcastically. Len gave me an amused smile, so I flipped him off.

"No, she isn't even in the restroom. Well, she has a key, so she'll probably be back by the time I get home," Gackt said.

"Let's hope she is. I have to get some sleep tonight. Unlike someone…" I trailed, looking at Tieru.

"I do too sleep," he replied, not bothering to turn around. I was to tired and therefore lazy to retort with a perfect argument, so I ignored him.

"Well, I'll see you later today then. Keep a look out for Luka," Gackt said before hanging up. I dropped my hands down onto the sofa and knocked my book onto the floor, making a dull thud on the floor.

The cell buzzed with a incoming text. I raised my hand to look at it and it read, "When you see Len again, kick him in the nuts for me." It was from Gackt. I smirked at the idea, looking over at Len lazily. He didn't notice as he finished off the banana and started for the kitchen.

I texted "Got it : D" back to him. This was going to be absolutely hilarious. I started up when I noticed Tieru off of his video game and on a MS Word document that was already half full. "What are you doing now?" I whined.

"Logging. Why, does it bother you that I'm not on a video game? It bothers you when I'm on anyway," he threw out in true snarky bastard fashion. "Hell, you yell at me when I'm on the computer half the time, so I should already know that you'd complain. What a subtle relationship we have."

That comment pissed me off, so I went after Len and when I bumped into him exiting the kitchen, I gutted his ass in one swift kick through his legs. He blinked once more before shaking in agony and buckling over, crying. He had disposed of the banana peel in the trash, and was just leaving when he bumped into me.

My anger sated by the sadist pleasure of kicking my brother for shits and giggles, I returned to Tieru and started to beg for him to get off the computer when Tei and her company walked in. Tei threw me a happy smile and so did Haku, until Tei saw Len cringing.

"Len! What happened?" she shouted. He was in so much pain that he couldn't move, much less speak.

"Gackt came over and left just before you guys got here," I explained.

"Gackt was just here?" Rook asked, irritated at the mention of him. "Geez, my house might not be too far to walk to before the sun comes up."

"Rook," Ruko said, trying to get him to stay. "Wouldn't you be all alone out there? All alone in the cold, crisp air with no one to hold you close and warm up. All alone when that blue haired guy comes flying by and-"

"Alright, alright. I'll bring someone along to keep me comfort. Let's see," Rook said, missing his point. He looked over the other people and the room and spotted me, and gave me a look that most definitely frightened me. I stepped back and looked to see that everyone else had fled the scene.

"Ruko…" I said scared, and took another step back, before turning and trying to flee, but Rook zoomed and caught my arm.

"Rin! Such a wonderful time to meet you! I was just needing someone to assist me in going somewhere!" he said cheerfully, turning me around.

"Aren't you strong enough to be just fine?" I retorted.

"But as you can see, Ruko fears that I might be in danger of harming my handsome self, so to comply with her wishes, I request you come with me," Rook said, with a fake smile on his face.

"You are strong enough to handle being outdoors for a half hour. Prove him of that fact, since I'm going to bed," I told him, trying to break his grasp.

"You really think he'd allow that?"

I turned to look at Rook with a grumpy expression on my face, hoping to deter him, but Rook had a rare serious and sullen expression on his face. There is something out there that is dangerous and stronger than Rook, the culmination of the conversation told me, and he needed someone to look out for him.

I sighed. "Fine," I agreed, and Rook's default expression of amusement came back to his face. We started toward the door when Tieru entered the room and got back onto his computer.

"I'm borrowing your girlfriend for the night," Rook said.

"Don't do anything," he replied.

"What if I do?" Rook said with a widening smile.

"Probably nothing. Good night," Tieru called.

"You bastard!" I shouted at him as Rook dragged me out of the room.

Rin and Rook

They exited the house and gradually walked out onto the sidewalk, Rin trying to struggle out of Rook's grasp. When they got onto the sidewalk, Rook released her, and Rin rubbed her arm.

"You didn't have to do that," she said, and Rook chuckled.

"Didn't I?" he retorted, then turned down the sidewalk. The moon was descending on the horizon, indicating that it wasn't long until morning. However, the streets were as lively as in the day. The two of them walked down the street and into the city, traveling down to Ruhen and ducking into an alleyway.

"No, wait…" Rin said, pushing her companion away. "Let me lead."

"Whatever you say," Rook told her, letting the girl's hands work his shirt off.

Kaito

The red woman approached the business man and his wife noticed and tapped him on the sleeve. The man turned the other way and saw the woman, and tipped his hat in greeting.

"Good evening, or should I saw morning, which ever suits you best," he said.

"Why are you corrupt officials still around? Is it because you're hiring your wives to do it?" the red hero accused. The man's wife reached for a concealed gun, and her clothes vanished, leaving a black outfit reminiscent of a she-fighter.

"Demon!" the red hero called, pulling out a outdated sword, most likely an artifact found around her house's attic. The business man gestured his wife to lower her weapon and turned back to the red hero.

"Now, now. Don't use foul, racist language around the civilized folk. We were just headed somewhere we needed to go, so why doesn't your friend just take you back to his place?" the man said, gesturing.

"Friend?" the red hero asked, starting to turn around when I reached around and covered her face with a rag with just a few drops of chloroform.

"Of course, I'll be delighted to bring her home," I told the business man. When the red hero stopped struggling, I removed the rag and held her in my arms.

"Thank you," the man said, started to turn when I asked him about his company goals. "The company is a volunteer-based and funded organization that make ends meet, most of which are carried out as best as we can offer."

"I see. Well, have good dreams, my friendly patron," I said, and the man and his wife walked off, the woman's sweater reappearing. I looked down at my mistress and fished out her address. I followed Ruhen and came across it, a simple house that would most likely be ignored for a common dweller's. This woman isn't a commodity.

No, she is a work of art, a masterpiece. Only god could weave these golden threads and then toss her into the world full of depravity. I opened the door and carried her into her bedroom. I undressed her before taking the handcuffs and handcuffing her to the head of the bed.

Such works of art must be appreciated, such masterpieces savored.


	16. Matryoshka 5: Beta Math  Subtract Only

Mikaru Keiko

Driving up to my sister's place, Luka noted that we'll need some parts to do the operation.

"Knowing Mikoto, she'll probably have them already. If not, then the items to make them," I told her.

"Your friend isn't too concerned with getting his car dirty, isn't he?" Luka asked.

"Nope, it auto-cleans itself when in his hyperspace inventory."

"Hyperspace inventory? You just love confusing people, don't you," Luka snarked.

"You're just as sweet as a cat in someone's lap. Now if you wanted to know what I meant by hyperspace…" I said, looking at her, before seeing something in the road. I slowed down and stopped and parked the car on the side of the road.

"No, I'm good with knowing nothing," she said, taking off her seatbelt. We got out of the car and went to the person on the road to see that it was Luka herself, but in the skimpy night dress I found her in at her house.

"I know nothing!" she called, dashing back to the car. I picked her duplicate's body up and a letter fell out. I took the girl's body and put it in the back seat, and picked up the letter, but stashed it in the glove box. I turned the car back on and drove to my sister's place again, but by then the sun was rising. Mikoto's jeep wasn't there, so I headed towards base before being cut off by the MP.

"Id," they asked for, and I turned toward the alive Luka, she took out her wallet and got her school id from now and an older one with a different last name, and I handed them my driver's license and those, and they looked into the back at the dead duplicate. Fortunately, they must have thought her sleeping since they let us through.

I drove onto the base to find that Mikoto's jeep wasn't here either, so I went back out and then went back to the place we found the dead Luka's body. Out of options, we sat there on the side of the road and dozed off, until my phone began to ring.

"You could've called to have me unlock the door," my sister's voice said through the phone.

"Where are you?" I said, starting the car back up.

"Home. Did you just not see the jeep and go to base to look for it, only to be disappointed?"

"Bite me," I snapped and hung up. As I was starting the car up, I could see the sirens of a cop car go off right before I heard them going toward Mikoto's direction. I drove off and made a emergency u-turn, luckily without the police around, and hurried after the car.

Luka, living Luka, woke gently to note that we were on the road again. "Why did your friend get a neon-green Volkswagen bug?" she asked. I shrugged.

Returning to Mikoto's house, I saw that the police car was parked outside her house and that there wasn't anyone in it. I ran to the front door, which was open, and entered. I ran through the house and into the kicked open bedroom door to see some white-haired motherfukk riding on my sister. To my horror, he had impaled her through her back, and sliced down her spine, killing her.

"No one keeps me from my Bitch!" the man yelled at me when I entered, and continued. I reached out to him, converting my arm into my demon form's and smashed him and grabbed his somewhat living form. "No one!" he repeated weakly, and I clenched my fist, killing him. His blood dripped down through my fingers and onto my dead sister's body. I threw his form to the side of the room and converted my arm back into my human's and went to sit beside my sister.

I tossed Luka my keys and told her to get the letter, and she ran out. When she returned, there was a portal awaiting her. She strode over to me and said good night, before entering the portal and leaving both of our dead bodies behind.

Rin

We walked on silently as the sun rose before us, but neither one of us had gotten any sleep that night. Instead, we decided to spend sometime together, out in the cold, but for part of me it was a good feeling, but for the me now, I kind of regretted not being able to get any sleep, as I was having trouble walking in a straight line. Rook had his arm around me to steady me, but it didn't help much.

Nothing happened, right? I kept trying to convince myself of that, but it wasn't working. I felt bad, worse about giving into Rook, but I was the one who led. The street his house was on came into sight and we took it. There was nothing between the two of us, so I looked for a reason we went ahead with it. Maybe we wanted to try it?

That was most likely it, but at this age I shouldn't even be able to know what it is. We walked up his driveway to the simple two story house and entered the front door. He dragged my half-asleep from to the main bedroom and, since I was ready to fall over, lifted me onto it. He must not have been as tired as I was, as he left the room without staggering. Not caring enough to remove my clothes, I lazily dragged a blanket over me and closed my eyes.

Simple shapes filled my vision as I dreamed. First hexagonal and basic circles, then octagonal and right triangles. Eventually they blended together into more abstract shapes like flowers and grass, and colors then emerged to make it more vivid. Soon, I found myself out in the countryside alone, playing in the flower meadows I've only seen on TV.

I turn and prance around in the meadows, feeling the warmth of the sun and the lightness of the air on my skin. I smile and laugh at the ridiculousness of the entire scene, but it makes me happy. I can see nothing but flowers and rolling hills for miles, and I'm the only one here. I wear a plain white dress, as if to mock my innocence, but it's light and makes me appreciate the good heart that I have.

I come to a water hole and test the temperature of it, and find it not overly cold. It's a small pool, but that's just fine with me. I take off my dress to not get it wet and enter the pool, feeling the liquid goodness of the water. It becomes larger as I swim around, but I never lose sight of the shore I entered the pool from. When I get out of the pool sometime later, there are clouds in the sky. They aren't big enough to blot out the sun, but they threaten to do so.

I dry off and put my dress back on. I see the clouds are growing larger, so I try to find a shelter, but there's nothing but flowers and rolling hills for miles. I become worried, and try to walk in one direction, but eventually end up back at the pool. I take a deep breath and look around again. The clouds become stagnant and begin to rain everywhere else, becoming smaller. The sun shines on, and my worries disappear.

Suddenly, a man I don't know appears in the distance and sees me by the pool. He grows large black bat wings and flies over to me, and looks at me like a five-star meal. He has vibrant red hair and green eyes, and a red windmill-like design on his white shirt. He lands before me and reaches out to me gently, but I back up, away from me. a smile appears and grows on his face, spilling his dark intentions.

"Blonde hair and blue eyes, such a delectable combination that marks the superiority of a race once thought unachievable. Would you mind if I had a taste of the sweet ambrosia once more?" he says, in a clear and charismatic voice, but the message comes across plainly.

"I'm not old enough for such trivialities!" I argue, but he doesn't stop his approach.

"But you have! You played it in such a way that you won't have to pay, but you've ventured deep into the playground of adults, and you'll be treated likewise," the man says.

"I don't know you enough to trust you! I don't even want to do it again!" I say. The man is too close for comfort, but is still not touching me.

"Of course you don't know, you're nothing but a wishful child. And it's up to the adults to decide what life you get, so suck it up and turn around. You deserve more than just spankings," he says lustfully, his voice breaking.

"But you said I needed to be treated like an adult!" I countered, and he stopped. I got him for just a moment, but when he moved again, he swooped me up and held me by my neck.

"It doesn't matter either way! You're a child that thinks like an adult! You'll be treated as I see fit!" he yelled at me, tightening his grip on my neck. I looked around to see myself in a cage, somewhere underground as there were only torches to provide light, and barely enough to see at all.

He grabbed my dress and ripped it away, exposing my undergarments. When the last of the dress was gone, he reached for my paralyzed face, unable to say anything to defend myself, as a bolt of light shot through his hand like an arrow. The bat winged man dropped me, disinterested in me. I looked over, no longer paralyzed to see an angel clad in black catch me.

The angel wore black shades that covered his eyes completely, and there wasn't a single white thread on his clothes. He carried me out of the cage and through the darkness on radiant white wings. He didn't look much older than me, and his body was oddly cold, but he seemed to know what he was doing, not caring whether or not I was dressed. The light of the sun appeared overhead and blinded me, and when I opened my eyes again I was in the meadow and hills. The opening in the ground was like a crater, wide and ominous, and contained unknown features.

The angel flew across the land to the water hole where my fixed dress was awaiting someone to wear it, and put me down. I thanked him and put my dress on, and he gave me a smile.

"Thank you for saving me from the bat winged man," I repeated.

"You can trust the bat-winged people, just not those who bared their evil-forged fangs," the angel said, and disappeared in a ray of light. I was suddenly tired, but when I looked for shelter there were nothing but hills and flowers.

Haku

I lifted my head to see where I was, and had a hard time remembering what I did just before bed. I was back at the main house, laying in bed in a simple room that contained just a dresser, a chair and a desk. There was an old monitor and computer tower on the desk, and the blanket on me was striped pink and red. I don't remember being here, just that I knew that I was at the main house.

I got out of bed and dressed in a green shirt and blue jeans before I heard the computer start up on it's own. I turned around to see some words appearing on the screen.

GOOD MORNING LOVELY. HOW ARE YOU TODAY?

"Fine," I told it, confused.

I WANT TO PLAY A GAME. DO YOU WANT TO PLAY A GAME?

"Sure," I said, taking a seat.

THE DOOR IS RIGGED WITH EXPLOSIVES SO IF YOU TRY TO LEAVE YOU WILL DIE. SOMEWHERE IN THE ROOM IS YOUR PHONE AND ANOTHER DOOR TO OUTSIDE. THE BOMB IS SET TO GO OFF IN ONE MINUTE. 1:00. 0:59…

I stared at it for a few seconds as it hit me, before looking around for my phone, which had made it into bed with me. I stowed it into my pocket as the time came down to thirty four seconds. I looked frantically around for the other door to waste four seconds, when the phone buzzed with a text.

"THE GAME HAS CAKE," it read. I recalled that the kitchen was right below my room, so I crawled around my floor for the trapdoor. I found it next to my bed and pulled it open before frantically ducking through it as the timer reached 0:05.

I face-planted onto the kitchen floor, but the pain didn't compare to the sense of elation I felt. I looked around to see that Tei and Len were in the kitchen as well, Tei making pancakes and Len eating them. I could see Tieru munching on some as well on the computer.

"Want some?" Tei asked, indicating to the ones she just made, and I nodded, just barely wondering why they were not on edge. Well, Len was, but Tei and Tieru weren't. I stood up and Tei handed me a paper towel to clean up the blood that was running down my face from the impact, then took a seat next to a unnerved Len.

"Good morning," I greeted, and he nodded before continuing with his meal. I turned and thanked my little cousin as she brought me a plate of warm pancakes and remembered that Ruko was still sleeping, somewhere.

The phone on the other side of the room rang, and Tei picked it up. "Hello~!" she greeted happily, then turned sour as the person spoke. "Well, fine. I didn't want to speak to you anyway either!" she clamored, tossing the phone at me like a fast ball. I covered my face to catch it as I heard Tieru call out that he's sorry. The phone hit something and I opened my arms to see Ruko falling to the ground with the phone next to her, dazed.

"No running in the house…" Ruko said as she hit the ground with Tei gapping at her mistake. I stood and went to her and helped Ruko off the ground and into the chair and picked the phone up.

"Yo-p," I said and found it was Gackt on the other end.

"Found Luka, or…" he started. He paused. "Here, listen to this."

"In today's horrific breaking news, there was a great tragedy as high ranking military official Colonel Mikoto Keiko and her brother were discovered last night at their home murdered. Also dead at the scene is Governor Piko Utatane and Luka Megurine, who were two of the city's brightest and best. Reports are still being filed and the culprit is still decided to be out there somewhere…" a news reporter said through the phone.

I sighed deeply, shaking my head. "We've got a place for you to stay if you need to," I said over the phone.

"Yeah, thanks," Gackt said before hanging up. I pressed the Talk-End button and handed it back to Tei, before returning to my breakfast.

"What was it about?" Ruko asked, cutting a section off a pancake.

"It was Gackt, saying that a military official and her brother were killed, and that they found our beloved governor and Luka there dead as well," I told him, and she looked at me. Everyone did, but they looked away, slowing any process they were achieving.

Except Tieru, who was busily typing away at something, but I wouldn't put it past him. Tieru didn't know Luka, and Tei only meet her once, but for the rest of us…


	17. Matryoshka 6: Another End in Sight

Luka Megurine

Back on the road, with the recently killed Alpha me in back, we drove to Mikoto's, and I made sure we didn't stop for any more of me laying on the side of the road. We reached his sister's house in no time, and spotted her just arriving by foot. Mikaru parked the car in the driveway and got out, with me following. This was a very different scenario than before.

"I thought you were coming when it's lighter out," Mikoto chirped. She sounded and looked very much like a guy, but she still had a large chest that was hard to hide.

"Yeah, but this here girl thought it was best to hurry and meet you now," Mikaru said, shrugging. Mikoto looked at me and back at him half interested.

"Come on in. Just stay out of my room," Mikoto said, pulling out her keys and opening the door. I walked in after Mikaru and closed and locked the door. Mikaru disappeared somewhere and Mikoto had already gone off to her room, leaving me to move around the house freely. From the entrance, there were three split offs, right going upstairs, left into a living room, and forward down the hallway.

I went straight, then through the first door to my right into the garage. I flicked on the lights to find that they'd burned out, and was about to leave when a section of the garage doors lit up. I paused, and I saw a young woman with white hair, green eyes and what appeared to be a computer backpack attached to her neck flow through the doors in the lightened portion of the doors. She had on a black dress with green stripes that were designed like a circuit board. She landed slowly on the floor with cat-like grace and looked up at me, causing me to tense up.

"Hello, Luka. My name is Celty Iorach," she said, bowing gently and speaking in a heavenly voice.

"How… how do you know me?" I asked, scared but unable to flee.

"I have created you once, in a different time and plane. You grew into a beautiful woman, but human emotions, those called love and greed, wanted the attention of a human male, and cursed and killed one of her friends to have monopoly on him. She and those survived and revived during the time afterward refer to the incident and all the events afterward as 'Scissoroid'. Though it isn't relevant on this plane of creation," she explained.

"Luka, no I… killed my… friends?" I said, stunned. I felt the sadness creep up on me, chilling my spine. I felt my hands shaking, as I backed into the garage and closed the door.

"No, my dear. You didn't, she did," Celty said, placing her hands on my shoulder. I felt my tears flowing from my eyes, and then remembered something as I heard sirens in the distance. "Something wrong?"

"Yeah, there this white haired guy that comes in around this time and tries to get at Mikoto. He succeeds, but that was where I come from. Mikaru, a demon of some sort, tells me I was in a version of this world called Beta, and I'm now in Alpha," I told her, trying to stand. She helped me up and put her hand on the doorknob.

"A white haired man, you say? Would he by any chance be Piko Utatane?" she asked, turning the knob. The front door burst open, followed by someone running down the hall. Celty threw the door open and the guy slammed face first into the door. "Oh?"

The man who had entered rashly and crashed into the side of the door wasn't the same man who had been in Beta, the one that Mikaru killed. No, this man had blue hair and was much taller than Piko.

"You said white haired in Beta? This man has blue hair, and is obviously not Piko. No, this is Kaito, a very different man," Celty pointed out. I exited the garage behind Celty and closed the door as Mikaru's, no, Mikoto's demon arm reached past us and grabbed both Kaito and Celty.

"What is he doing here?" Mikoto asked angrily. "And who the hell are you?"

"Please, I'm an old friend of your brother's," she claimed. And as she was saying that, Mikaru appeared beside me, giving me a start.

"You are? Where from?" he taunted, indicating distrust.

"The village of Old Zeni, the mayor's daughter. I've changed since then," she pleaded.

"Your name," he asked.

"I went by Sabrina back then, now I'm Celty. If that isn't enough, then do you remember Iorach?" she poked around their apparent history together.

"We found your corpse back then, but anyway, why are you here?" he asked, calming down.

"I would say but I'm afraid I'll suffocate before hand. could you let me down, dear?" Celty asked Mikoto, and the demon complied.

"Deal with your stuff without me. I have to get rid of something then I'm going straight to bed," Mikoto said loudly, taking Kaito's corpse and taking it out of the room. Mikaru lead the three of us to the living room, where he got a fireplace going.

"How are you doing? No random demon hunters knocking down your door every second and demanding that you stop raping the orphans?" Celty joked, and Mikaru chuckled.

"If only. We tend to have a natural talent for being good to the orphanage down the street. If we weren't, we'd have more than just demon hunters to look out for," Mikaru replied. Celty laughed briefly, then gave him a smile. "It's a good thing that we don't have to keep it a secret, because if we did," he trailed, looking sharply over at me before looking back at Celty.

"You did such a good job back then, and we wouldn't have ever known had Chlo appeared and made you look like the bad guy. But that's history, and you know how we deal with history."

"If it don't harm us now, it doesn't matter," Mikaru said, rehearsed.

"I came here to drop off a load of mechanical goods and an extra pair of hands if needed. A couple if you include me," Celty said, and looked over at me, who was nodding off. "Of course, we need somewhere to stay for the night."

"There's two rooms upstairs, and you know you're welcome to kick me off my bed," Mikaru joked.

"Like you ever use it properly," Celty said, and stood up. I didn't notice and closed my eyes.

I was told this in the morning by Celty and Mikaru as Mikoto was driving us to the hospital that would admit the robotic surgeons, but Mikaru had carried me to my room as Celty got her assistant, a young black-hair girl that reminded me of Miku Celty called BRS, from the truck that she drove over. They stayed in the room next to mine, and once during the night Celty had tried to look me over, but that might just be Mikaru talking, as he's the one that apparently appeared to stop her from taking me apart. Celty didn't say anything about it, but she did give me a creepy smile.

Anyway, Celty had brought over several robotic parts that seemed to be semi-organic, which creep me out as they occasionally twitch. She had a nearly finished one with her, and had BRS working on it in the far back seat. I had asked Celty when she had built BRS, but she shook her head.

"I didn't. I don't have the skill to create someone this useful," she admitted.

"Useful? But you said you created me and the other once," I pointed out.

"She's skilled in mundane utilities and combat. I can only provide for myself in that department."

Ah. We rode on in silence, waiting patiently for Mikoto to drop us off at the hospital, when my cell phone rang. It was Gakupo.

"Hey," I greeted.

"Where are you?" he asked, worried.

"I'm heading to the hospital for an emergency. Don't worry, I'll be alright," I assured him.

"Right, well, be safe," Gakupo said, and then he hung up.

"Be safe," Celty repeated, somehow listening in on our conversation. "We'll keep you safe." She leaned into me, then reached her arms around me. I tensed up, but I eased and reached around her, when she held me tight and licked the back of my neck with a rough tongue. "If only I could," she said creepily, before Mikaru reached back and thumped her on the head. She withdrew from my shaking embrace and I realized that Mikaru might have been telling the truth. She had built me once, and I could tell she was dying to see what her creation's alternate self was made of.

Yuki Kaai

I entered the first period classroom to expect Gakupo's seat to be empty but to my, disinterest, saw him in it. He seemed a bit lost, but it wasn't my job to find out what was wrong with him today. That was the counselors or the police. Speaking about police…

I spotted a girl with tan cat ears and tail standing in the front of the classroom, wearing the school uniform, except that she was wearing shorts, not a skirt. Anyway, she must have been the transfer student as she was holding a schedule. She looked at me expectantly with green cat-eyes and handed me her schedule, which was in the negative so I could help but hand her it back and tell her to sit in an empty seat, but there weren't any except for Meggy's but she wasn't here today, oddly enough.

The nekomimi girl didn't say anything as she took the seat and took out her notebook. I swear I've never seen her, but oh well. I haven't seen the police suddenly appear behind me, have I?

"Excuse me, Kaai-sensei? I'm Miki of the Special Forces unit, and I'm here to collect a few of your students."

I stand corrected. Without missing a beat, I turned around to the officer with sunglasses and long red hair holding her badge made of cheap metal, and wasn't in uniform. Rather, she was wearing a pink sweater and black biker shorts, as well as a hot pink sash with the hex code A2 on a blue insertion. "Pardon me officer, but your outfit needs some work," I snarked.

"Excuse me?" Miki retorted, a sudden temper rising, prompting her partner, an actual officer with white hair and had some sort of blue contraption around his eyes that made it spark out with electricity, put his hand on her shoulder to get her attention. She turned around and looked to him, before taking a deep breath and turning back to me, fishing out a real warrant and handed it to me.

I looked over it and saw that it was for Gakupo and Wesley, whom I assumed to be the new girl. I handed it back and nodded to the officers to proceed. Miki went to the middle and turned toward the class, requesting the two students. Strangely, Wesley wasn't the nekomimi. Gakupo gathered his stuff and followed the three others.

As Gakupo left, I started to felt anxious. I returned to the blackboard and began to write today's lesson out when my cell phone buzzed. I didn't go to check it, but later when I did it was a paranoid message from Hiyama.

I told you so.

Kaito

I awoke in the hero's room, the woman already awake and trying to get free, occasionally looking at me. She wouldn't recognize me, as this mask I wore prevented it from happening. There was a heavy mist outside that had chilled even through the walls, and it was dark outside to boot. Instead of teasing my friend by untying them, I stood and walked to the front, which was, despite the locks being on my side of the door, unopenable.

I stepped away from it and tried the back to no avail. My friend had laid back and fallen asleep again, and I covered her up in the covers she had pushed off her. She had a knife she had tried to get up to her hands, but gave up after it fell on the floor instead. I picked it up and pocketed it. Going to her living room, I noticed the non-battery-operated clocks had shut off and turned back on and were now blinking the time of 4:13 pm.

I walked around the house until there weren't any rooms I haven't been in except the basement, as I don't know where the way in is. The attic was empty except a collection of sword replicas and an altar to a generic game god, as the notebooks filled with quotes from said games that were next to it indicated. And to compliment all of it, there was also a list of sins that she had apparently committed.

They included: letting several villainous persons go, not following customs of 'hierarchy', not saving her husband, and bribery through adultery. "None of your sins will ever leave you, but by service to the people will you be forgiven by God," was written over the space above the list. I put the notebook down after ripping the message from the page, making sure not to get the list of sins.

I returned to my sleeping friend and found her body lukewarm, so I felt the need to warm her up with me, as the chilling air was still seeping through the walls. After all, I don't want either of us to catch hypothermia. It would be a shame if she couldn't repent for her sins.

Eventually I fell asleep once more, this time on the hero after binding her legs and awoke to find that she was patiently waiting for me to wake up to get off and untie her. She stared at me as I got up and put on my clothes, the bitter cold turned freezing. I looked out the window to find that the pitch black night hasn't changed a bit, even though the clocks blinked 10:25 am. The doors didn't work either, and nothing has changed about the contents of the house.

Instead of untying the hero, I sat on the edge of bed. "Where's the entrance to the basement?" I asked, and she looked away pouting.

"Not until you untie me, masked villain," she retorted.

"This is going to go one of two ways: Either you give me the location to the entrance of the basement willingly and now, or you'll…" I paused, realizing I couldn't do much worse without disabling her.

"I'll…" she mocked.

"I'll destroy your faux-holy rites and your altar in the attic, as well as dispose of your precious video games," I said, trying my damnedest to sound like it mattered. And sure enough…

"You wouldn't," she said in true clichéd form. She looked at me scared, almost frightened. I now had the upper hand.

"Surely you must treasure them. They are quite old, but still in good condition," I taunted. She turned away, resisting looking toward her captor. "If threatening won't make you tell, then I will follow through."

"No!" she shouted, and began struggling with renewed strength, but it wasn't enough to break her bonds. But it did make my feet hurry to the attic quickly. I found the stash and took a handful, then went to the garage and retrieved a hammer.

Setting the games out on her desk, I looked at her struggling to break the boards at the head of the bed. "First game," I announced and took a game for the game boy advance and readied the hammer, and she stopped struggling. "You ready to talk?"

"Never," she spat, and I turned toward the game.

"Fine with me," I said and struck down on the game square, denting the casing. The hero screamed, and I turned toward her startled. She began breathing heavily, which made me go over to her somewhat worried. "You don't look so well."

She glared at me. "Fuck… You…" she managed to get out, before I returned to my work. I smashed it twice more, fracturing the casing and audibly snapping the chip inside. I turned toward the hero to find that she was bleeding ever so slightly. Shaking my head to get away from the strange worry that had began to build up, I took two more swings before the casing revealed the broken game chip inside. I finished the job by breaking the rest of it with my hands and tossing it away and turned toward her, with a surprise to behold.

Her stomach had a few small hexagonal sections missing, and was bleeding through them. "Like what you see?" she taunted, her voice fluctuated by the pain. She was breathing as if gasping for air, which she might as well be.

"Tell me where the basement is," I repeated, and readied to turn around in case she decided to refuse, but instead she shook her head and gathered her breath.

"After you untie me. Just do that, and I'll tell you everything," she said, giving in.

"Right," I said, finding that my own voice had become less commanding out of worry. I retrieved the hero's knife from my pocket and cut the binds, and she let me back off before shifting into a sitting position. She placed her hand over the missing sections and closed her eyes, and her hand started to glow. The games I had brought started to emit meta-physical computer codes and hover over to her and, to the best I can explain in words, added themselves to the wounds and closed them up, and the bleeding stopped as she removed her hand from her stomach.

She looked up at me, and gave me a smile, one that indicated that she no longer bore a grudge against me. I felt it was that since she now had the upper hand. "I'm an artificial girl who was sent on an interdimensional journey to defeat the darkness and let only the light excel. It's worked for me up until now, but when I came to this town there was a strange sort of darkness, something that separates it from true evil. I've just recently learned the language and lifestyle around here, and it's been hard to not fall into the darkness, but I feel like soon light will win," she explained.

"Basement?" I asked, trying to make her think I wasn't listening. She half-heartedly glared at me, falling for it, but softened up right after.

"What makes you think there is one?" she asked.

"Because you were so willing to go through all that torture to hide the dead bodies in it," I joked, until she flinched. I flinched, and she shrank back as if trying to make me feel guilty. Unfortunately it worked the opposite way. "You have dead bodies?"

"Didn't you just say you knew that?" she said scared.

"I was joking for the most part," I said, trying to milk her for all this was worth.

"Oh god, oh god oh god…" she repeated, putting her hands on her face. I started chuckling, until I noticed that she was crying.

"Calm down. It wasn't your father-"

"STOP THAT! You say you haven't been down there yet you know just about everything in it! What are you? A memory fisher? A devil of Heleaven? Just who the hell are you?" she screamed, crying harder.

I walked over to her and smacked her straight across her face. "Calm down! I'm just guessing as to what might be down there and coincidentally getting it right! It was in the past, right? Nothing overly recent, correct?" I told her, and she looked up at me.

"It was almost two weeks ago when he died, when we had just arrived here. He was killed by a chimera disguised as a human girl, who was looking for a free warm meaty meal. I managed to get her off of him, but she ran away before I could kill her," she explained. "She took my sister away before I realized she had been with us, and I don't know any longer if she's alive at all."

"I don't know if I can make it up for what I've done here, but I feel like helping you do something. Don't expect me to be on your morally-good level most times, if ever, but let me give some help. Of course I'll need an exchange, but I'm sure you'll give it in full some day," I told her.

She smiled and looked at me, before wiping away her tears. "Thank you," she said, before we got up and she led the way to the basement. "My father called me Meiko, them Mimi when my sister was born since my name ended up turning into our family name," Mimi told me .

"Yeah, you can call me Kite," I told her.

"'Kite'? interesting," she said, chuckling a bit. She opened the door to the basement and I saw that there were five coffins laid out with altars at the head. Two of the five were white with silver crosses at the head, two were wooden with white crosses and the last one was black with a four-point gold star at the head. I pointed to the black one and asked if it was her father.

"No, it's my creator. My father is in the wooden box next to him," Mimi said.

"What was his name?" I asked, hoping to get out of here a bit quicker.

"Cross Marian."

Tieru Sukone

"Just remember the eggs," I called after them. Tei, Len, Haku and Ruko were going out to get something for dinner tonight, as well as get Rin and Rook. Knowing Rin, I probably would get yelled at for not coming along, but I had still had some work to do. I saved up what I currently had on the word document and stretched, when I felt the air chill slightly. I looked over the room to see that no one was here.

Yet.

I got up and retrieved the dao from between the tower and desk, and unsheathed it in time to back away and parry a swipe from the chimera.

"You're all alone again. All alone with me," she said threateningly, licking her rugged claws. She may appear to be a young girl, but she was not human at all.

"What of it?" I retorted, and she lunged. I dodged and struck at her body, and I drew blood, but not very deep. She grabbed my outstretched arm and curled around my body, to which I dropped onto the floor on top of her. Despite my effort, she easily lifted me up off her and wrestled me and held me over the tip of my sword.

"Drop it or you die," she told me, and I pushed up against her, but she dug her claws into my back. I tried hitting her with my head, but she headbutted me back. "Nice try," she said, and bit a little into my neck, just enough so that it bled and hurt. She lapped up the blood as it flowed, before smacking the sword from my hands. "Just you and me, the dominant and strong one, and then there's you, trying to keep me a secret from them. All of them." She overpowered me and pinned me to the ground.

"Get off me," I told her, and she laughed.

"But look at our relationship! How do I live without you? Or you without me?" she said, grabbing my arm and slicing a scar across my wrist. It started to bleed, and she raised it to my mouth. "Taste it, taste how delicious you are and follow me into the dark," the chimera said, forcing my struggling arm to my mouth.

"No, never," I spat, but the chimera won again.

Which would be a paradox of some sort, because winning against someone means you don't lose to them. So how could the chimera win against me when we're the same person?

* * *

**As noted on my profile, this series is the second part of Virtual. Depending on how many reviews I get I will either get to it when its turn comes after we (or I if Mikaru doesn't get his butt to work) work on Nmend, the third part of bluh bluh bluh, or if I get plenty of reviews do it right after this, as this will lead straight into Aku no Monogatari.**

**Also, I know there is a lot of romance writers, but where is all the slaughter fic writers? Am I the only one besides Sergeant Sprinkles (Who only did one one-shot gorefest)?**


	18. Matryoshka 7: Chimera Crowning

Rin

Waking up to the sound of someone entering the room, I found Haku sitting on the bed next to where I was lying. She was talking to Rook leaning on the door about day to day stuff. A quick look at the clock told me that it was about noon.

"Heyp," I muttered, the two of them turning to look at me in turn, before wrapping up their conversation. I sat up and pushed the blankets off me, before having Haku help me stand up. "So, how's your night?" I asked drowsily.

"Pretty well," Haku said, and Rook nodded. They were in a such a good mood that I woke up faster, and felt good as well. I shook my head clear of the drowsiness and followed the scent of breakfast, which was pancakes and eggs, which Meggy had personally took the time to come over and cook for us.

Miku and her had gone out to search for Meiko, whose house vanished from where it was last night, and they split up, Miku going to Neru and the other group, who I haven't seen in a while, while Meggy came over here to check to see if we're okay. Ruko told us about the red woman and blue masked man that she and Rook saw last night. Meggy thought about it for a moment before shaking her head.

After breakfast, well actually brunch, Len was snuggling with Tei in the living room and Meggy took Rook and Haku to meet up with Miku, and since we left Tieru back at our joint home me and Ruko were left to go pick him up. We went the same way that Rook took me, except instead of stopping to enjoy ourselves, and possibly embarrassing ourselves in the middle of the day, we went straight there.

However, it seemed he wasn't there, as the door was locked and all of the lights were out. Despite that, I decided to enter anyway, just to make sure he wasn't here. I walked in coolly and quietly, as not to be detected when I sneak up on him playing his computer and—

I turned into the living room to see a large splatter of blood on the carpet, along with Tieru's dao and a switchblade. Also there was a girl with red or hot pink hair with two drill-like ponytails standing emptily and dazed in the midst of it. She had batwings protruding from her back, and blood dripping down her arm. She was also wearing Tieru's clothes, torn and bloodstained.

I stood paralyzed as Ruko entered the room from the other direction and the girl stirred. "I smell…" the girl started, then threw back her head and laughed manically. I turned and ran for the door, but within seconds the girl caught up and grabbed my arm. "Such a delicious smell wafting from you. I'll take my share," she said, pulling me back with her incredibly strong arms. I looked over to Ruko, who sat there in horror as the girl opened her mouth and bit down on my neck.

"Ruko… help…" I mouthed before the sensation of pain overrode my thought process. Ruko stood there, frozen in shock. Damn… it… Ruko… Help…

Kaito

I waited for Meiko to finish breakfast, while I washed the dishes I somehow ended up doing out of boredom. They weren't many in number, so I finished with these by the time that she finished with her breakfast. I still haven't taken off my mask or handed back her knife, but she had retrieved another from elsewhere in the house.

Mimi entered the kitchen after some time and placed her bowl in the sink before taking the sponge from my hands and washed the bowl. I washed the soap off my hands and stepped out of the kitchen, the cold now a paralyzing freeze. The world outside the windows was just the inky darkness that allowed no light to be seen. The need to question the world outside rose out of rising desperation, but I shook my head, expecting some sort of relief waiting to be provided through patience.

That was it, I was finished waiting nicely for her to notice I was freezing and confused as to where we are. I walked over to her and grabbed her arm and let go quickly.

I was freezing. She was hot. Hot. As in not freezing. The opposite of freezing. Which I was. I shivered off the slight stun and grabbed her arm and hauled her into my arms and reached around her, trying to take some off her heat. The warmth of her body felt good on my chest and in my arms, and I stopped shivering.

Meiko was shocked but willing to be forced into my arms, possibly because she might've mistook it for a friendly, if not loving, embrace. I couldn't care about looking like this. I was cold, and she had the warmth I wanted. The freezing cold of the air around us pressed on my back, but the warmth transferring from her body fought it off, away from me. She never lost any amount of heat it seemed, but I couldn't care.

Luckily I had lasted this long, due to my jacket, but I wondered how much longer I could hold out until hypothermia set. That was a chilling prospect, and in any other time the cool pun would be greeted with a warm welcome, but I was the one in need of the hot sun. I looked out the windows for any possible way to turn up the heat in this house, because although it is somewhat is a good thing we're bonding over the heat, it's her heat that I'm taking, and I have to resign myself to her, which might actually be a good thing…

I moved into the living room and grabbed one of the light blankets, but not really thinking it would be enough, since my winter jacket wasn't doing anything to keep me warm. Mimi finished quickly and disappeared before I noticed, and something appeared outside the window. I half-stared half-zoned out the window at the strange object until the lights flicked off.

My eyes blinked from the sudden change in lighting and focused on the object, and found it was some sort of massive creature. It was much larger than this house, and appeared to have multiple 'mouths' and 'eyes' and more than enough limbs and what only appeared to be appendages everywhere. It moved in the general direction of the house at a relatively quick speed. As it approached, I could make out the grainy brown color of it, and noticed even smaller mouths and eyes and limbs on nearly every surface possible.

I backed away from the window and hurried around the house, looking for her. I went to the basement where the circuit breakers usually are, but found them not cutting off the power. I began to hear strange, sharp noises outside the house that rang in my ears, no doubt from the being. I looked around the basement for something to cover my ears with, something to muffle the sounds, but found too little of practical use.

It started speaking in a human tone, most definitely aware or acutely aware that it's doing so, as I began to understand it. "Children of the binding law, to whence are you bound? Passing through the cracks between timelines, coming to another, breaking sequences and importing noise into your realm. Taking the form of something practical but not long-term useful, you fools pass through the emptiness and bounds of mass as if you were secure from all."

It stopped talking for a moment, and I held my head as the pounding headache subsided. I turned to see Mimi enter the room to see me and she hurried to my side. "Head hurt?" she asked worriedly.

"Doesn't always the first time?" I retorted as she reached around me, warming my cold body back up.

"Not exactly, but it does show that you're still quite sane."

"Sane, such an interesting word. Anyway, where are we? Why it so cold?" I asked.

"We're in the space between worlds. It naturally has no temperature, so when objects within have some pass through, the space leeches off of them," Meiko explained.

"What about you? You don't seem to be getting colder."

"You can say as a computer I only am able to heat up when active. I might crash and shut down if I don't cool down a bit."

"Did I miss something? I'm not robosexual, so could you kept mention of your artificial nature out of normal conversation? I like to keep thinking you're a woman, not a 'bot."

"Of course," Meiko said. It felt good, having her warm me up, until she let go to head off upstairs. I followed and we found ourselves in the attic. She uncovered a tablet of some sort and placed it on the floor and began tinkering with it.

In the midst of her tinkering, it began to gently glow, and, although I couldn't see what she was doing, formed into images. She moved her fingers quickly through the motions, so fast it didn't look like she was looking at where she was tapping. Suddenly, she started to get frustrated, and then threw her hands up in defeat. She took a deep breath to relieve some of her anger, and started once more, this time at a slower rate. In less time than expected, the board flashed and stopped glowing.

"Finally," Meiko said, standing. "I wish there was a universal do everything I want it to do button," she complained, leaning on me.

"You weren't getting it right?"

"Nope, screwing up a lot. Did you think I was doing just fine?"

"Yeah…" I told her.

Luka

"…and you turn this tight and close this flap until it locks…" _Click. _"…And we're done with this one," Celty finished, putting the Alpha Timeline Rin's legs back onto the bed where the rest of her lay bandaged and unconscious. "Do you need me to go over it again?" she asked, looking over at me.

"No, I got it," I told her, and we split duties. Celty took the AT Len and Meggy; Celty's friend took up the red woman and AT Miku, while I was put in charge of AT Haku and Tei. I got Haku done first, by which time Celty had finished with Len and was taking her time fixing up Meggy, giving her special attention that was creepy, and her friend was working diligently and quick, finished with the red woman and almost done with Miku.

I started to work on Tei when Celty walked in and asked if I need help, and I declined. "I got this," I told her.

"I'm going out for a bit to check on something. You have my number if you need something," Celty told me, walking out and closing the door behind her. The nurses that were on duty to assist us passed by and took the four people that Celty and her friend finished to their proper hospital beds.

Halfway through my work, the door opened and a woman in a pink sweater and a cop who looked like Governor Piko entered, the woman walking with elevated sense of authority, while the Piko-look alike walked with a sane mind. The woman walked ahead of Piko quickly, and before I could put my work down she snatched my arm and started to drag me away, then gave me a look of scorn when I yanked my arm out of her grasp.

"Excuse me," I told her, but she then rolled her eyes and looked at Tei and Haku, before putting her hands on her hips. Piko opens his mouth to speak finally, but the woman interrupts.

"Turn the fuck around, put your damn wrists together and don't struggle," the woman ordered, then moved before she finished. I backed up into the hospital chair, surprise and confusion running through my head as she started to grab at me, when Piko jumped and pulled her off of me. "Let go!" she scolded her partner as if he was doing something wrong.

"Miki, stop that!" Piko retorted, getting a irritated sneer from Miki before flinging his hand off her. "We aren't here to arrest her, just to ask her some questions damn it."

"Regardless, she's still coming with us," Miki said arrogantly, then flipped her gaze toward me. "What is your reason for staying?" she asked.

"I'm in the middle of cybernetic surgery," I told her, and she looked toward Haku, then to Tei, then back to me.

"Want some help so we can hurry on our way?" Miki asked, giving me a suddenly friendly smile. I felt fear once again wave over me, inching back, before relaxing. She was now calm, and seemed to be friendly now, seemingly submitting to Piko, but there was something still…

"Yeah…" I said, turning back to Tei. Miki came to the operating table and looked her over, before I picked up the tool I dropped and put it aside and went to fetch another one when Miki pulled out a gun with the silencer attachment. She fired into Tei's body, killing her, then looked up at me and pulled out her handcuffs.

"Turn around," she said angrily.

"Stop!" Piko repeated, worry and anger prominent in his voice.

"No! I am taking her in for interrogation and giving her the court date that Governor Kaito set. Secondly, I know what I am doing! Don't mess with me god damn it!" Miki concluded, grabbing my arm once more with a steeled grip and pulled me toward her. I pulled away, but her grip wasn't like earlier, rough but loose. She spun me around and put the handcuffs on me quickly.

"But what about-" I argued, but Miki hit the back of my head cutting me off before dragging me out the door with her incredible strength. Piko lamely rubbed the back of his head and followed silently, trying to ignore the curious and worried stares from onlookers.

?

_Rrrrrrrrrr-chr-think-chr-think-rrrrrrrrrrrrrr-chr-think-chr-think!_

The train ride was quiet. Barely any of the other passengers talked and those that did were on their cell, luckily making the annoying experience quick. The porters carried and delivered food, water, cleaning supplies, and the like throughout the cars hastily, stopping only when called on by a passenger.

Ritsu and Miko leaned against each other, sleeping peacefully, both looking graceful. Defoko was reading her book, but she was steadily nodding off as the warm and comfy train trudged on. I took another bite into my apple, thinking of all the fun that Tieru had invited us to. We haven't seen the crew in a while since the Governor ditched Miki for the female colonel, whoever she was.

I twirled the apple core upside down in my hands, which caught the attention of one of the porters. He approached me quickly, as he had been trained to do.

"Ma'am, may I take your trash and throw it away?" he asked, rehearsed and friendly. I gave him a smile before shaking my head.

"This isn't trash. Apples are sacred. From the core outward, not just the skin and seeds," I explained, cupping my hands on the apple core. I brushed it, and it showed the porter its sacred powers of regeneration. The skin shone with its full rosy skin, not a single imperfection across the smooth, ripe and delicious shell, at least until I bit into its juicy self once more. The porter had collapsed, drained of blood and nutrients, which puffed into dust as Defoko's book fell onto him from her now sleeping hands and scattered out an open window.

Defoko herself fell back into her seat and slept, while I ate the apple, which now had blood for juice, and was much more appetizing to eat. The ironic taste and smell filling my nostrils, making me feel like a vampire. When I reached the core once again, the flavor died down, and it started to taste like ash.

I looked out the window nonchalantly, looking at the sun set once more on the train. It had already been a couple days since we got on, but we were less than a day now from the city.

A familiar feeling rose, a feeling that I had felt multiple times on this trip already ebb in and out, something close to fear and worry, and also anger. There was someone on board that was spiritually powerful, yet had little control over their output in their sleep. I haven't put much effort into finding them yet, so instead of let boredom break my reverie, I finally stood and started after the source, going to teach them a lesson. I woke Defoko and dragged her tired self along, for the chance of something going wrong was expectantly high.

And of course, if need be, Defoko could be used as a shield and leverage.

* * *

**So, since nothing was happening and I need to move the story on, Update! Chibis! Update or something on those two stories (Aiko and Zatsune's Revenge) or I'll write my own versions of the two and I'll butcher the characters! Chapter by Chapter! And I'll slaughter the characters over and over like Higurashi, flaw by disimpassionated flaw!**

**Anyway, I will post the Grand Heroic Anarchistic Story Timeline if either the Chibis Update one of their previously mentioned stories OR I get some more reviews, meaning more than the few I've been getting, though I am grateful to Nami for already doing so consistently.**

**Anything else I need to cover... The outro is by the wolfkin Miko Ouka, with the first referenced Miko is Momone (A error I will use to fix the dimension traveling Miko, whose name is actually Momo Momone). Due to the GHAST, the dimensional travelling Gumi's name will also change.**

**That's all for this chapter's Author Notes. Remember: Read and Review. I can't get better without you.**


	19. Matryoshka 8: Umbral Convoy

Angels don't age as fast as humans, thus live longer. It's difficult to accurately gauge one's true age, so generally we base our age by the human equivalent of our looks. Natural born Demons age at a slightly higher rate than humans, but their lifespan is on average only half as long. They grow taller than the average human, and thrice as strong, but not as fast as angels. Angels are physically weak but make it up in intelligence, something demons replace with pride.

Devils, the combined form of the two divine souls, barely age at all, thus will never die of old age, and are also extremely strong physically. However, their intelligence doesn't get much higher than the average human, as most devils ascend from demons. As if they weren't strong enough, when they are taken to Hell, they become immeasurably stronger.

However, angels are the most sacred in human eyes…

The poor man who was radiating massive amounts of spiritual energy was looking around, excessively paranoid, as if he was trying to lure someone close. Too bad he was getting everyone's attention. The amount of energy put off was more than enough to attract even the people with the weakest detection skills, and those around him were silently basking and absorbing the waves. He was freaking out, unable to slow the torrent of spiritual flow, and he could feel our stares pound into him.

I felt sorry for him, so I walked my way around for him. "Hey, calm down," I told him, patting him on his shoulder. He spun his head around toward me and flinched away, before nodding and taking a deep breath. The flow slowed, diminishing the amount of power output. He looked me over, and smiled.

"Thanks," he muttered nervously. I sat down next to him on the bench, looking over to see that my stuff wasn't being messed with before turning back. "Ah, um…" he started, blushing. I felt my own face start to flush, but I kept calm.

"My name is Luna Amane, but you can call me Luna," I told him, taking a guess as to what he might have been getting at. He smiled and nodded. The amount of spiritual radiation had died down to a trickle, not much more than a normal person would.

"Luna," he repeated. "My name is—"

The door burst open, causing everyone in the room look over, and three porters dashed through the train car and hurried through the room and further into the train. They opened up the other door and headed through, passing a couple of girls going through. The girls were dressed strangely, which made it obvious they were outsiders of some sort.

One of the two wore mostly purple and black, and had short purple eyes and hair. She had a beret and a sweater with shorts and dark purple tights, with fuzzy boots. She had cybernetic ear fins, something off of a mecha anime it seemed, but her friend…

Her friend was a younger looking girl with light brown hair and dark brown eyes, wearing a pink hoodie and orange shorts and dark knee high socks. Her ears, however, were that of a wolf's, matching her tail, but to the untrained eye, they matched her hair and thus unseen. I made the quick assumption that, by the childish frown on her face and her friend's tiredness, she had come after the man beside me and had woken and then dragged her friend along.

To hide in the crowd, I leaned on the man and looked up at him, making him look away from the two that had entered. The wolfkin and cyborg passed by us and didn't look us over, the disguise perfect, though the man's spiritual power started leaking again, forcing me to drain it again. However, it didn't prevent the wolfkin from detecting us and whirling around, looking dead on.

She grabbed her friend and spun her around, making her dizzy again. The wolfkin marched and stopped in front of us, giving us an irritated look while waiting for her friend to stagger over to her, and I straightened, since leaning on him wasn't going to work. Me and the girl shared silent glares, both darkening gradually, until the dizzy purple girl sat down to get her bearings.

"Your guy here seems to have an exceedingly large amount of spiritual energy, but little control over it. I thought maybe I could take some to help him out, ya know." The wolfkin started to pace, her tail swaying gently to look fake.

"Spiritual energy?" he asked confused.

"Yeah, you've been radiating the stuff in large quantities for some time now. You didn't know that? I even brought Defoko for this. My, I might as well take all of it for myself seeing as you're not going to use it," the wolfkin stated, reaching over before I snapped at her.

"No! You are not getting anything from him, wolfkin," I told her, which made her flinch. Bingo. "Last I heard of your kind was when they ran away with their tails wedged between their legs, scars covering their bodies from their own faulty judgment. Everyone expected your kind to be extinct because of how bad you screwed up! It's a miracle that there are anymore of you for the scientist dissect, since they've got their hands on every other kind of creature, from demons and youkai to the undead liches and arbiters. You think we can just forget what happened back then! You've got to be kidding me!"

The wolfkin shrunk back in fear, more like the young child she was, until her friend, Defoko, intervened. "Lay off of her, you blonde brat! You don't know jack how anyone felt back then, nor could you! You're what, fourteen? Fifteen? Until you know what actually happened that day shut the hell up!" Defoko retorted.

Oh, really.

Defoko

The blonde looked toward me with a strand of confusion, which then turned into cocky pride. I then realized that she knew what she had said, and what was occurring was a bit late to undo. Her shadow expanded and started to smoke up in shadowy tendrils that literally surrounded her. The man she sat next to scooted away, a look of fear growing on his face. The shadows then dispersed, showing that a man had taken her pl—

Or rather, that she was the man, as he held a doll with the girl's figure. He had jet black hair, shaggy and short, but his eyes were bright blue, that of an angel's. I subconsciously bit my tongue and wished I could undo what I said, but…

"What the heck were you saying?" the boy prompted, looking at me expectantly.

"I-I, uh-h," I tripped over my own stuttering, trying to calm down my heart, which was starting to beat loudly.

"Good, now shut up." Turning to Miko, who was visibly trembling, "Now, I'll deal with him. Go back to where you came from and take a nap or two," the man said to her, who turned tail and left me behind. "You going?" he said to me, which made me flinch, then hesitate before running after her.

The man was covering his face, astonished like us as to what happened as the Angel shifted back into the girl form. I made a mental note about how the angel looked and not to mess with him until we touch down at the city.

Miko stopped just outside the car and moved off to the side. Her sullen look turned blank, then turned towards me with the same cheery smile she usually wore. "did you hear that? The angel's still sore about the Pack from a few years ago. Maybe we could talk to Sukone about calling some of them up to help out," she said, widening her grin and closing her eyes halfway.

"Do I want to know what happened a few years ago?" I asked, and she snickered.

"Let's get back to the room where everyone else is. It's a sensitive topic with the… fair people around," she said, starting off toward the room.

I had a feeling this wasn't as important to the main story as it could be.

I followed after her, hesitating a moment to look back toward the angel, and found them alone, the boy gone from the train car. As I started towards our car, the porters from earlier emerged from the car in front of me, forcing me to the side. I stumbled back and hit the ladder on the back of the angel's train car and, as the last porter went through the door, my foot slipped from the edge of the platform and I fell off.

I fell just as fast as the train, and the dirt came like a failed judo chop to my back, keeping me conscious. I keep my legs pointed up, keeping them from being run over by the train, but they quickly started to burn with pain. I tried to somersault backward, but I had too little momentum and ended up closer to the train. I began to cry, and gave into the terrible fate.

It tore through my legs so fast there wasn't even a crunch.

Haku

I couldn't feel my fingers as they lifted instinctly from the bed to block out the light, and my skin itched under itself around my fingers. I remembered in growing flashes what happened, the military ball, my terrible conduct in front of the Colonel and First Sergeant, then the sudden crash and blackness.

My body is numb to my senses except for the itching in my feet and hands. I felt my own breathing like it wasn't naturally supposed to be there, as well as the blood flowing through my veins. I was aware of everything going on in my body, and it felt disgusting. The taste in my mouth wasn't any less bitter than ash, nor was the sinister smell that filled my nose comforting. I felt tears flow up to the corners of my eyes as I came to realize that I was still alive.

Relax, Haku. It's not any where near as bad as it seems, I told myself, and the tears stopped. I heard the doorknob turn and open as the doctor entered the room. He dimmed the lights, making my arm flop down onto my… my… I couldn't feel where it landed. It was just a blur of senses, numb except for those itches.

"Corporal Yowane, can you hear me?" the doctor asked, sitting down on the chair next to the bed. My eyes slowly slanted towards him, but I couldn't see him still.

"Y-yes," I said, through my sickening sore throat.

"I have good news and I have bad news, I'm afraid. Umm, which do you wish to hear first?" the doctor asked.

"The good news, please," I said, starting to recall more about me.

I was a Corporal in the marines, enlisted two years ago on request of my older stepbrother Dell, who died of a cigarette bomb five months ago, which jumpstarted my drinking habit. After that, my cousin Tei's parents died in a feud with a large church after her brother Tieru Sukone captured their main 'priest' in a slum ring, which got him promoted to Staff Sergeant, forcing Tieru to go into active duty and leaving Tei to live with me and my folks.

Which was all before Miko Momone took power, and used her power with the gangs to scam the unfortunate into jeopardy. The current Governor, Lance Novestin, going by the alias Kaito, then lead an uprising, backed by the military and threw her out of office, with Kaito substituting as the stand in Governor. He cleaned up the place with the help of his own gangs, plus another, winning the popularity of many. However, there is no golden sunshine that comes with leaders of gangs.

"You're in a recoverable state, although you still need a few more operations before we can let you leave the hospital," the doctor said, then shuffled his posture.

That was good news, but the sweet feeling soured as I recalled there was one more thing the doctor prompted. "What was the bad news?" I asked, and the doctor swallowed as expected.

"Your cousin, Sukone, won't be leaving with you," the doctor said, but my mind was already aware of the matter.

"Could you put the 'DNR' on the records?" I asked, which the doctor flinched to.

"Now, don't be hasty. We can put you into therapy. In fact, I do believe it would be the best idea-"

"You can stop that. Therapy never worked for me. I had already accepted that my family was a group of slaves to the military, and that until we could get out and had a good life afterwards there would be the possibility of getting better, but what's there to live for when it backfires? If therapy worked, there would be no need for half the medical branch, there would be little religion, and there wouldn't even be the great number of death in the world. Very seldom therapy works, and very seldom does it have a lasting effect.

"The world doesn't run on rainbows and butterflies, does it? If it did, there wouldn't be any for the children to play with," I concluded, smiling.

"Ma'am…" the doctor sighed, then stood to leave. "I'll come back in a few moments, and see how you're doing. Please look on the bright side of life," he said, then left, the door resounding in my ear.

The room was soon quiet, with only the sound of the dull roar of the air conditioner audible. I lifted up my hand again and touched my forehead, which finally registered a sense of feeling, but not through my hand. I raised it in front of my face and practiced touching each finger with another, and found the simple maneuver easy, along with faster dexterity that my fingers flew through the motions quickly.

I noticed that there was a newspaper on the side table, and I tested my other arm's dexterity, which was successful, and took the paper. I sat up, making my stomach hurt from disuse, and brought the paper in front of me.

"In Memory of Lance Novestin, Still Missed After Three Years."

Gakupo

I had never been a social person. Always worked in a quiet position, never went to parties or any real social gatherings. The library was one of my only three friends, my boss and my secret place being the other two of my tight circle. Then there was that pesky girl that always bothered me, and her friends that I somehow added to my circle. That girl forced herself into my life like a thief cracking a safe to a wealthy bank, she knew how to do it successfully and professionally, and did it.

The brat's name was Luka, and when I heard that on the news she had been killed by a gunshot I felt like I was required to tell her friends. Afterwards, I sat back, went to work, and went through the motions of the rest of the week, until I received a phone call on the following Friday night.

"Hello," I greeted, as was customary to do so, and as the only person who knew my phone number and actually called me was my boss, it was respectful. Or so I thought.

"Hello. This is… Kamui, right?" said the young girl on the other end. Great.

"Yeah, what is it to you?"

"The train that's going to arrive in a day has a group of dangerous people on board. You need to carry the message to the others that everyone needs to start finding somewhere safe to be."

"Did you call the cops? Or are we the main targets or something?"

"The latter, and I don't have enough change to spare for another call."

"By the way, who and where are you?"

"Defoko, but you would know me more by Uta Utatane, or less, by any standard, and I'm four train stations away and stranded, alone."

"Four stations away, huh. If I were you, I'd start looking for somewhere to stay the night."

"I would, but I'm at a large disadvantage. You see, I need to get over to where you are and if anyone saw me, they'd call the hospital and I'd be heading in the wrong direction."

Wait, hospital? "What's this about a hospital?"

"It's much too complicated to say right now, but if you'd be so kind and pick me up-"

The line went dead as her time ran out. Defoko sounded like she was in a lot of pain, but determined to race a train I'm pretty sure would arrive before I could even get to her. Shortly after, the phone rang again as I tried to put it down.

"Hey," Meggy's voice sang.

"What's going on?"

"You mind looking after Tei and Len tomorrow? Possibly take them out of town, into the country, get some fresh air…"

"I was sort of thinking that this world is getting a bit… _small_, don't you think? Anyway, I have to make a road trip to pick someone up, so it can work."

"Oh~? Going to a date for the first time?" she teased.

"Not a chance. You know that I'm only social in emergencies."

Oh ho ho ho! Not so fast! You got to get out-"

I sighed as I pulled my hand back from the phone. Idiots. Idiot. If you claim to be anti-social, then back it up!

* * *

**Chibis, I will make the deadline for your Chapter 9 Update to Aiko or Chapter 24 Update for Zatsune's Revenge 20120309. If the deadline is not met, I will follow through with my promise and start killing your characters chapter by chapter, starting with Aiko.**

**Let's get this story back on the road! No references this time, and a foreshadowing of things to come.**

**_In a place jet black, where ever the stars fear to tread, I find a light that shouldn't be there._  
**


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